A Cunning Plan?
I am not in anyway comparing Dr Parnia to Baldrick, but I do wonder if he has a cunning plan.
Ten days ago the media became aware that the AWARE II study had been published. I summarised some of the responses in this post:
https://awareofaware.co/2023/09/15/news-about-aware-ii-publication-and-a-comment-about-news/
The fact was that the AWARE II study was first published in July, and I covered the main details, including the EEG data, which was not associated with any recalled experiences, in this post:
It seemed that some interpreted the study in a way that suggested EEG data showed the brain was producing the NDEs, and this was in part due to the somewhat illusive way in which Sam Parnia discusses that data. In written publications his inference points towards these markers of consciousness being indicative of brain activity associated with NDEs. This lead some articles, such as the Scientific American piece, to suggest that the brain was producing the NDEs:
https://awareofaware.co/2023/09/19/i-avoid-swearing-on-this-blog-but-wtf/
You can’t blame them really as is it not very clear what Parnia is inferring. Then, a few days ago, the lab posted a reel on Instagram that made their position absolutely clear, and which I covered in this post:
https://awareofaware.co/2023/09/20/clarification-of-the-speculation/
In this reel (also available on their YouTube channel) he specifically states that they were able to show the mechanism by which disinhibition occurs:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxdjYcApTRB/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
The study was able to show for the first time electrical markers of these lucid hyper conscious real experiences. We were also able to show for the first time, the mechanism by which this experience occurs, which is that as the brain shuts down the normal braking systems that hold it down. This is known as disinhibition.
This, combined with the video describing this in more detail which specifically states that the consiousnesss is not anhilated at death, and the response to Thomas’ question, discussed in my previous post, causes us to conclude that the Parnia lab is claiming that their data shows that the EEG spikes are related to this event, and are markers of the consciousness accessing these states, and possibly leaving the body. The “packing its bags and leaving” hypothesis. This is despite the paper stating that there was no EEG data for patients who had REDs.
That is where we are, and I am wondering if it is all part of “a cunning plan”. Maybe the Parnia lab, realising the materialists would cite the EEG spikes as evidence of the brain causing NDEs, created their own theory as to why we see these spikes occur. Why not? If the materialists conflate data and get it published, why can’t we?
I have huge concerns about this. Dr Parnia says that he will create another video that goes into this mechanism in more detail. It is possible that he may relate it to some of the data obtained from research into psychedelics. Whether he does or not, he must have more evidence than he has currently published that specifically associates these EEG spikes with REDs or he is, in my opinion, and with all due respect, in danger of looking a teeny tiny bit like Baldrick.
I have been covering Dr Parnia’s work for over a decade now, and have enormous respect for him and his colleagues, but that would be severely undermined if he used EEG data from patients who never reported any recollections (most likely because they sadly died) as evidence that supports this mechanism. It is absolutely fine to suggest it as a hypothesis which must be proven in bigger studies, but to actually say that it “shows” something is going on is a step too far. It quite simply doesn’t unless he shows new data. I don’t want people to pile in here, as I said I like Dr Parnia a lot, but what he says must be consistent with the published or presented evidence or his work is no more credible than the various studies I have discussed here in which scientists state that a bit of EEG activity in rats or coma patients around the time of CA proves NDEs are the result of brain activity.
In summary, given the data we have been provided with it is impossible to draw any conclusions about the nature of what, if anything, is going on with the patients who had EEG spikes. End of.
AwareofAware 
Well stated. My chief complaint for quite sometime now has been Dr. Parnia’s ambiguity in his discussions regarding REDs. It’s a propensity that has been noted and criticized in various media platforms, such as Reddit, where various groups have made postmortem consciousness their central topic and circulate his name with frequency.
I have a few questions for you, Ben. I’m a complete neophyte, so I have to enlist your expertise to gain insight into the culture that goes into such things as peer review, the publishing of scientific study results and the public discussions that inevitably follow. This is not a challenge in anyway to anything that you have stated.
1) Would Dr. Parnia – or any scientist for that matter – carefully strategize or dilute the language they use in discussing the findings of their scientific studies to serve an ulterior motive? Even if the motive is considered benign, are they not doing this at a terrible expense to both themselves and their colleagues? It seems incomprehensible to me that behavior of that nature would be put into practice without compunction.
2) Is there a possibility that in some of those moments when Dr. Parnia was less than clear that he may have been speaking off the cuff?
3) This is a biggie. Do you ever concern yourself with the possibility that the scientific findings regarding NDEs might after all confirm that REDs are a construct of the brain? The facts are the facts, of course, and we can’t inoculate ourselves from them or look away when they are not to our satisfaction. But what if it comes to that conclusion? What’s the next step after that?
Thank you.
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Hi Thomas,
Great questions. Not sure I completely know the answers, but I will have a go.
1. Scientists are humans. I have worked with them all my life. I have seen them say one thing to one audience – pharma, and something that sounds very different to their peers. So yes, they do alter language and nuance for their audience. I do it. I am a full throttle christian, and if I was to say everything I say to my fellow christians on here, you, and most of the other readers would never come back! So it is natural to do it.
Parnia and his colleagues have been walking a line for a long time – the line that divides the materialist scientific community from the dualist believing community. To retain credibility with the first community they have to present their findings in a matter of fact way, and then to engage with the other community be more open about what they believe.
In truth, I am playing around with the “cunning plan” idea, but only to a point. I find it a massive stretch of reason to say that the data shows this disinhibition hypothesis is true. That is the inference from his video. Now I think it is a plausible hypothesis to propose, but to say that their data “shows” this to be the case, is not possible given what has been presented. This post is me trying to find a reason for doing that – I am speculating. I could be completely wrong, but unless they produce more data, I am struggling to see why they are doing it, and this “cunning plan” is a possible explanation of their behaviour.
2. Yes.
3. Not really. There is far too much evidence from reports of highly credible people that makes this outcome extremely unlikely. It is “possible” only if thousands upon thousands of experiencers and attending HCPs, family members and wot not were completely deceived by their own observations.
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Thank you Ben and Thomas for your comments. Very helpful aka BevWhitney
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Thank you for your answers, Ben, and my apologies for taking so long to respond. Your answer – most especially to my #3 query – adds clarity to my thoughts. Sometimes when you think deeply – maybe even excessively or (worse) obsessively – about any one thing, nonsense can accumulate in one’s owns mind, making it difficult to discern wisdom from rubbish.
It will be interesting to see what the Parnia team is working on to further the explanation of their findings. Unfortunately, based on the frequency of previous posts, I think it will be a while before we hear from them again. As far as the biomarkers, if it’s the brain responding to consciousness, could we not look at the brain as the first EEG machine?
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Apologies for this newbie question. Can someone please explain the term REDs?
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REDs are term devised by a panel of NDE experts who created a consensus paper last year and means “recalled experiences of death”. For more on this I refer you to my post on it:
We had lots of “discussions” on it, one of which resulted in one of our best and most valued contributors leaving the blog.
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Thank you. I look forward to reading this. And too bad about the participant leaving the blog.
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It was, and all over semantics.
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And me jokingly suggesting he might have Asperger’s.
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Hi Ben!
For redundant clarification, are you in agreement with me that the position the Parnia lab is taking is that consciousness really does survive death and that the EEG readings are markers of a real experience NOT created by the brain?
Whether or not the actual data they have reflects this, that is the stance they are taking?
Thank you I’m trying to process all of this.
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Yes, that seems to be there position precisely.
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This is becoming a Harry Potter movie lol.
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I’m unsure if I am right on this but if what Parnia lab video says about the brain and dishinibition is true and the brain does produce consciousness, shouldn’t everyone who goes through cpr have these memories?
Also what is your opinion on memory? do you think memories are stored in the brain or that we “take them with us”?
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Hi Thomas,
It is not easy to be clear given the confusion around what is claimed, and what the data says. The data says nothing except some people have brain activity during CPR, with a tiny proportion of that maybe at a level to support conscious activity. However, none of the EEG recordings of these patients was for patients who had recollections of any kind. The latter did not have readable EEG recordings. Therefore, given the lack of any association, any ideas about what the EEG signals represent are speculative, and hypothetical only.
As to Parnia’s position on this, it appears from the comment from their Instagram account that I posted in my last post that they absolutely do not believe that the brain produces consciousness but rather that the consciousness persists beyond death. This is consistent with much of what Parnia has said and written outside settings such as AHA.
My opinion of memory is very much analogous to laptops and cloud storage. This is entirely speculative but based on what NDErs report. I believe that all experience is recorded by conscious beings and “uploaded” to a central repository. If the life review is true, then you would not be able to experience an event from another person’s perspective unless records of all experience were somehow stored centrally. Is any memory stored “locally” or are we always accessing the central storage? I suspect the former because it is fairly inefficient.
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Akashic record
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I can see why some people jump to conclusions and claim that since we have EEG data, it likely points to the origin of NDEs/OBEs. On the other hand, I agree with you, Ben.
Because while it sounds logical to conclude the above position, without data, it’s still just speculation.
P.S., I used to watch Blackadder a lot growing up – season four’s (WWI) the best.
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It’s a toss up, season III was excellent too.
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There’s a documentary called afterl death. It will be in theaters October 27. Go to angel.com/afterseath
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That looks really good. Has Howard Storm’s NDE in it, which is my “favourite” although it is very concerning too.
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Been listening again to Parnia Lab’s Lucid Dying: Exploring Brain and Consciousness at the End of Life (1 year ago) in the light of all above https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl_DxGHR3Z0&t=4848s
Academics here implying a new paradigm for consciousness and struggling with what it could be. My impression. That they have Donald Hoffman (his argument that we never see reality as it is) and that he has consciousness as fundamental and has a detailed model surely key.
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What does he say about memories? As from what I have heard he doesn’t believe we will have any although that contradicts what NDEr’s say
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I haven’t heard Parnia say that. In fact he says we have a life review and a our memories are played at once.
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I haven’t heard him say that too. I have heard him say no scientist knows how consciousness can be generated from brain processes. Surely that implies memories could be “somewhere else”?
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Hi Ben, sorry I wasn’t clear enough I meant in Donald Hoffman theory
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Understood.
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Consciousness is fundamental, in what way? Do you mean for anything to exist there has to be consciousness to observe it, as in Robert Lanzas ideas, or do you mean something else entirely, I genuinely don’t understand. For those who are dead if you believe consciousness is anhilated at death, nothing exists, it only exists for those who are alive, as in nothing existed for you before you were born.
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At 26 minutes in the video, after everyone’s had a talk, the moderator, she says … “I think that maybe it’s safe to say that everyone here can probably agree that consciousness and the idea of the self is not stemming purely from physical matter …”
Nobody contradicts that. If that’s everyone’s baseline?
Then before this at 11:39 Sam says … “Donald Hoffman is an expert on consciousness …”
I thought this really interesting because if you believed it arose from the brain you wouldn’t be looking around at someone like Hoffman who starts from consciousness as a fundamental.
So Hoffman starts with, I think, “conscious agents”, and aims to get physical properties from this. I believe he’s also spoken about NDEs and is open to the possibility of an afterlife.
Seems sensible if you’re doing things the other way around.
That’s why I said everyone in the video seems to be struggling with a new paradigm – imagine how complex starting with a beginning that Hoffman envisages and then develops. I’d say very few (inc. me) understand what he’s up to! And he’s said his model could be wrong but not in the sense of materialism/physicalism being the *right* way – he implies in his work we have to start differently.
So it’d be interesting to hear about anything else they’ll be saying. Here we are, one year later.
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Here’s a new video from Sam Parnia https://youtu.be/l0rLJyzOBGc?si=kdFWr72J3ZqiRX-J
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“I think that this study shows there is a biological trigger that starts the experience but that the experience is real. It’s not a trick of the brain. It’s not a hallucination. It’s not a delusion. It’s a real experience.”
Okay.
Now, does this mean that NDEs/ REDs are a mental construct? Are they a fabrication of mental or neurological processes? What about those experiences that contain veridical component? The news anchor cam painfully close to asking at least one of these questions but didn’t. This left enough wiggle room for Dr. Parnia to apply his trademark ambiguity.
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Ok, bat they say ” Recent reports of increased gamma and other physiological electrical activity (normally seen with lucid consciousness) during and after cardiac arrest and death have led to speculation that biomarkers of lucidity at death may exist [study of rats and patients in coma], which our results support. Taken together, these studies and ours provide a new understanding of how lucid experiences may arise in relation to cardiac arrest/death […] however, the paradoxical finding of lucidity and augmented reality when brain function is severely disturbed, or has ceased , raises the need to consider alternatives to the [materialist] epiphenomenon theory.
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Yes, I think this shows his true position.
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He really does express this in a very nuanced way, at one time suggesting that the mechanism involves a disinhibition of the brain’s natural “braking” process which inhibits access to all of our brain, resulting in an experience in which the brain is able to access all memories, and on the other saying the brain accesses “other dimensions”, for up to an hour after CPR has started.
He makes it hard for materialists to argue with the first part, in that this is akin to what they argue…it is a natural phenomenon in which memories come rushing back. The other dimensions thing perplexes both sides of the debate, and leaves them scratching their heads, and maybe wanders into quantum mechanics. He has basically developed a way of explaining the observations that is intriguing, thought provoking but doesn’t invoke too much controversy.
The natural trigger he is referring to, I believe is CA, or something that induces the brain to believe CA is about to occur. He is creating scientific language to describe what has been said here and elsewhere before, namely that whatever is holding the consciousness in the brain, is removed around the time of CA.
As I have said repeatedly, I do think he is stretching things massively, unless he reveals more specific or new data, to state that what was presented in the AWARE II paper supports this mechanism. We do not know if the patients who had EEG activity had lucid experiences since they were not interviewed, and to imply or infer that the 6 who reported REDs would also have had similar EEG activity is unscientific and speculative at best.
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Thanks Paul, good spot, and adds a little bit more detail to the “mechanism” he proposing.
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To lighten up
Verily, “The Parnia” story dost hangst by threads,
It’s wonders to perform,
Yet Golden Threads of new Dimensions of Reality and anecdotal informs.
One wonders what the future bringst, Perchance the Verified Case?
Until then, wistful souls prepare indeed,
For a skeptics smack in the face. 🙂
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😆
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My head is going in circles reading all about this lol… so is this a win for materialism? Or for believers in an afterlife ? From what im seeing and comprehending is this is looking good for believers in an afterlife .. but i feel like everything is back and forth and concluding pretty much we still dont know much .
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Hi Joe,
It is not a win for anyone in this debate. It is a nothing burger, and in my view Parnia is trying to make much more of it than the data warrants.
It is good for patients as it shows the brain may be capable of consciousness up to an hour into CPR. It creates the possibility for speculation on both materialist and dualist explanations, but nothing more.
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Orson, Joe, there’s a great deal extra on experiences during REDs in the “Supplementary data 1” of their paper. Figure S1 and Table S1. Section S1A.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0300957223002162?via%3Dihub
They’re distinguishing these from four other categories. The next 2 are experiences during wakeup, the last 2 delusions and dream stuff.
Then there’s “the need to consider alternatives to the epiphenomenon theory” in the paper as Davide pointed out above.
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Hi Alan, thanks for this. I have read the supplementary articles, and they are interesting. Of note is the fact that all research resources were redirected during COVID, hence the data collection stopping in 2020. It is still ongoing though. However, the key point relating to all of this, and the most important in relation to this discussion is the final point under Figure 2 in the main paper: “Two of 28 interviewed subjects had EEG data, but, weren’t among those with explicit cognitive recall.” Unless they have new data, this is why I am saying what I am.
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Ok, yet I see Sam may now be reaching out for other areas of expertise in science (e.g. Donald Hoffman, also physicists willing to take a plunge into consciousness) to help with strong hints in the discussion in the final section of the paper and by giving people’s experiences in S1A. And they still refer to consciousness as a possible “separate undiscovered entity” which I remember came out in his Erasing Death book in 2013 (and possibly before). No change since then!
Backup now needed.
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I agree that the whole “accessing different dimensions” comment opens the door to a multitude of possible avenues. I think that this data forms a nice baseline from which to work, but the first and most important question that needs answering is whether the brain activity is definitely associated with these experiences. He seems to suggest it is, but has yet to present the evidence. Once that is the case the theories can be developed further.
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Dr. Parnia interview
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Thanks Paul, you’re doing a great job of finding these clips.
I would really like the line that Parnia is taking if he would frame it differently, and state that the idea of the braking mechanism and disinhibition was a hypothesis consistent with the evidence from NDE research, and which needs further study to confirm, rather than stating that this data explicitly shows this is what happening. The “Brain packing its bags and saying goodbye” hypothesis is interesting, but I am not convinced given that NDEs occur in people prior to them having CPR, and where brain activity is impossible after the first 30 seconds. In all truth, I think this is CPR induced brain activity, and is more likely the brain trying to fire up again as it is fooled into “believing” circulation has been restored. I think he may be driving up a cup-de-sac here, but it is worth pursuing this idea under “the cunning plan” scenario to provide an alternative narrative to the obvious materialist explanation, which is equally unfounded. If only he framed it is a potential explanation, rather than as what is actually happening.
He sounds like he has a stinking cold…what a pain having to do all these interviews if he has. Hope he gets better soon.
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You will find out the truth or maybe you won’t, no point at all thinking about it, and that is the only real truth, there you go.
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Hi Ron, pointless and unhelpful comments are not welcome here. Either provide intelligent discussion and insights, or stay quiet. Thank you.
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Comment removed by moderator.
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You don’t have to come here if you don’t find it helpful. All I ask is that if you do comment, your comments are relevant and add to the discussion. I rarely block, people, but people who repeatedly post pointless comments do get blocked.
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But I don’t understand, why does he say he found EEG data from people who had lucid experiences?
in the final document it seems to me that something else was written…or am I wrong?
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It is a mystery to me. The footnotes under the table specifically state that none of the patients who had recollections from their time being given CPR had EEG data. Unless he has new data, or unpublished data, he is over egging the pudding.
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Can you guys explain to me why are you so fixated on correlating recollections with EEG, what it will give you?
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Hi OR,
It’s not that we are fixated on correlating recollections with EEGs, it is that others, including Parnia, are associating recollections with brain activity, when so far there has been no published evidence of such an association. In doing so they then assert their hypotheses as actual explanations. In Parnia’s case his disinhibition theory, and in the materialist case, that the brain is causing the recollection.
In science, it is important to be accurate, and at the moment neither are doing so.
My personal take on this is that Parnia is half right. I don’t think the EEG activity he is seeing “up to an hour” after CPR started is disinhibition, rather I think it is the brain starting to fire up again because it momentarily receives enough oxygenated blood. If “disinhibition” does occur, I believe it would occur with the seconds after first CA.
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That doesn’t make much sense to me.
Any thinking process, even though we don’t really know what it is yet correlated with brain waves, nothing more than that and nothing less.
It is safe and obvious step to connect any brain activity (waves) with thinking process after cardiac arrest based on verbal reports and look for footprint of it in the brain, let’s leave aside details and types of the waves for now. That is how science usually moving ahead, hypothesis are based on previously established correlations even though we have no mechanism what is causing what.
Quite significant reporting of NDE assumes detection of brain activity (even without identifying what is causing what and how it is connected) and it was clever, well calculated step to try to detected it and apparently successful.
It is proving rather reality of experiences (removing hesitation like hallucinations and that kind of stuff) and that thinking process (whatever it is) is not produced by ordinary biological mechanisms and do not depend on blood supply, at least directly.
Correlation with particular NDE reports would not do much here, actually would not do anything at all. Unless you know mechanism it is even somewhat irrelevant.
Adding direct correlation can help only if they would detect something completely extravagant and unusual, but otherwise it is what is expected. No resuscitation would form some of those brain waves that are associated usually with focusing or deep thinking while all other lower lever reflexes are disabled – that makes no sense at all, you first “wake up” your pupils reflex and gauge one before well structured waves will appear.
I frankly don’t see one weird contradiction in what Parnia is suggesting. Parnia is very smart. Lol that is my conclusion. And ahead of many.
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There are so many comments on this blog and parnia that I’m still unsure whether they believe that ndes are caused by the brain or not. I know nothing has been shown but it is hard to get an opinion from them. Do you make their instagram comment as evidence they don’t believe the brain creates these experiences and that we can exist without the brain?
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Yes, I do. I also think that there may be some truth in my cunning plan thought. I just hope it doesn’t backfire. Unless he has a RED associated with EEG, he should back away from saying: “this is what IS happening” to “this is what might be happening.” That’s my only beef with his hypothesis.
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I think it’s really safe to say that brain activity can occur with ndes. Thats a safe assumption to make and we shouldn’t get surprised if someday they show it. Let’s be safely prepared for the data to show this eventually in further studies. It however doesn’t mean anything regarding the spiritual nature of ndes. We all know correlation does not equal causation. I for one would like to see if there is any correlation of specific components of ndes with brain activity. I’m curious if the brain activity helps us recall certain portions of ndes. For example a large study that finds that 1000 people had ndes but only 800 had eeg data and they are the only ones who experienced a life review. It might give us a hint of how memory plays in ndes.
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even if there was eeg associated with the reds it would mean little in my opinion.
I am now conscious as I am writing, my EEG will show gamma, beta waves, etc etc
Does that mean it’s the brain that’s creating the reality I’m experiencing?
or does my brain “only” allow me to access this reality?
that’s the point, for me.
sorry for my english
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I agree. There are so many confounding factors in trying to correlate REDs with experiences. Unless you are able to timestamp the RED with the EEG readout, there will only ever be association. I suspect that when Parnia first started out he hoped his set up would provide more insightful data…as did we all, but unfortunately the whole thing was scuppered by COVID when the study effectively was put on ice in March 2020. However, I am assuming that it has resumed now, so hopefully there will be more data coming.
I do think he is doing the right thing airing his hypothesis about the EEG activity, as I have said multiple times he would do better to frame it as hypothesis generating with two competing hypotheses, His vs the materialist one, providing potential explanations, rather than presenting his as a fait accompli to the NDE and scientific community. This might attract more funding and centres enrolling, as well as not risking his credibility.
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Eventbrite I’d replaying Dr. Parnia documentary Rethinking death today at 1pm central time
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Please tell us how it was and if there is anything new.
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If you go to Dr. Parnia youtube channel, you can see the entire documentary Rethinking death, for a limited time
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I think there is a line by Dr. Parnia that had maybe been overlooked but is profound. At 23:40 Dr. Parnia says “based on the medical and scientific advancements of recent years, we have reason to believe that many of the people who described their experience HAD GONE BEYOND THE GRAY ZONE OF DEATH.”
That’s really quite bold.
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It is, and consistent with what he said previously in these types of things. He is careful not to use wording like this in his scientific presentations and papers, and instead suggests that the brain is accessing different dimensions. Using that kind of language is much less likely to enrage the materialists.
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“It is safe and obvious step to connect any brain activity (waves) with thinking process after cardiac arrest based on verbal reports and look for footprint of it in the brain, let’s leave aside details and types of the waves for now. That is how science usually moving ahead, hypothesis are based on previously established correlations even though we have no mechanism what is causing what.”
There were no verbal reports, there are no correlations.
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Is that from the documentary? I don’t remember him saying that.
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Ben,
I am not sure we are on the same page.
Verbal reports are NDEs stories. Thousands of them.
He was looking for any indication of brain activity after cardiac arrest and found it. And not just faint or screwed one but actual waves characterising normal conscious states. This is quite flip flopping current perception of brain science and surely supporting and correlating with reports of continuing consciousness after threshold of death. There are more to it but above us just bare minimum coming out of this.
What precise correlation between reported NDE and bran waive will change?
None of those results btw explain what is consciousness, or NDE or mechanisms of interaction between mind and brain, as well as support or not dualism or materialism or any other position, I am failing to see how it can do that in principle…
Thx.
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Hi OR,
You are right in saying that none of this would necessarily explain mechanisms of the interaction between mind or brain, or support or refute either of the two competing beliefs about the nature of existence.
I understand why you say what you do but I disagree with your first paragraph though. Let me try to break it down to show why I disagree, and it is fundamental and important.
1. Prior to this study the position about NDEs was that they occurred when the heart had stopped, and brain activity was not occurring, and therefore consciousness was not possible, and therefore NDEs were not a product of the brain’s activity, and proved dualism. Rat studies only showed activity up to 30 seconds after death. The coma study showed activity associated with consciousness prior to CA.
2. The aims of this study were to explore reports of awareness during CPR, and seek to identify whether or not these were associated with brain activity.
3. This study found that some patients had EEG signals that may be associated with consciousness, while they were receiving CPR.
4. A number of patients reported memories from during CPR.
5. No one in the group in point 4 were in the group from point 3. This is vitally important.
6. To date, no one who has reported an NDE has recorded brain activity associated with that NDE.
7. Brain monitoring in this study started many minutes after initial CA.
8. Many NDE reports immediately leaving their bodies on CA.
I am a medical scientist. I spend my life dealing with clinical data and determining whether it has meaning or not. One of the most important central tenets to hold on to is the much cited, and oft ignored expression “association does not imply causation”. This is why I agree with your last statement. Even IF an NDE had been associated with brain activity, it does not mean that the brain activity caused it. I think this is where Parnia is going.
However, there is no association. None. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that you are saying that because Parnia found brain activity in one group of patients during CPR and NDEs occur in a different group of patients during CPR, this means that the two observations are associated. That isn’t the case. It is a bit like saying because Mick Jagger is English and Stephen Hawking are English, being a rock star is associated with being a theoretical physicist.
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Brian May’s a physicist 😉
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And Brian Cox is a musician! Anyway, you know what I am trying to say.
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Brian’s are more likely to be multi-talented musical physicists.
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Couldn’t resist
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@Ben “6. To date, no one who has reported an NDE has recorded brain activity associated with that NDE.
”
1. To date, no one has even looked for such evidence. OBE visual targets have either not been used in hospital studies, or such targets have been hidden and secret.
2. It is *inevitable* that the veridical OBE component of the OBE in this hospital studies during CA/CPR will be associated with the brains network activity.
3. The severe limitations of medicalEEG/EEG, mean that not finding such Electro-Magnetic activity doesn’t mean such activity is not present, because it cannot not even measure such activity, even in principle.
4. What goes on in later part’s of the NDE (generally after the OBE) are currently way outside of our biological understanding of brain activity. However new physical theories from People like Gregory Pennington and Nima Arkani-Hamed etc offer glimpses of highly speculative mechanisms.
5. As an example of point 3. It’s only *very* recently that we’ve discovered that theories about Global Burst Supression across the Cortex during high dosages of Anesthesia are completely wrong. New studies show the V1 Visual cortex is actually completely disconnected from Burst Supression. This is almost certainly relevant to the veridical OBE recalled during cardiac arrest under anesthesia.
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Is there anything new in the documentary? Any evidence or anything that clears what parnia’s hypothesis is?
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Hi Thomas, I watched this back in the spring, and there wasn’t anything new. Here is the post I wrote about it:
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Oh I didn’t know that post related to that video. Do you guys think that when parnia says ndes allow us access to hidden parts of the brain which these allow us to access these realities that this is a dualist theory? Could Sam Parnia be defending an approach that ndes are caused by brain activity? From listening to him it seems as he does but then you have their instagram comment to the other thomas and makes it all hell of confusing
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Thomas. No. I don’t think Sam is defending a materialistic perspective he says a lot of borderline things in formality because of who he is speaking too but in private he’s quite dualistic. Same if you read Dr. Greysons presentations from the early 00’s.
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Hi Michael, how do you know he is dualistic in private? Also could you tell me where I can find bruce greysons work from the early 00’s?
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I agree. Ive been studying NDES for 31 years now. I still remain agnostic towards them. More research is definatly needed. Looking forward to Parnia new book. Anyone know when it will be published.
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Dave- Parnia Lab just dropped this.
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Lol I just hope this wasn’t the post they referred to about explaining more in depth about their stances on consciousness. This post seems to be what has been said many times in graph form.
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Those were my exact thoughts after first reading their latest post. I was expecting a more robust and detailed continuation to the response I first received.
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Ben,
You are looking for (expecting) correlation between NDE and brain waves like it is going to mean anything.
Say you have it, then what?
I don’t find Parnia is making any strong and specific claims supporting one or another view – he is researcher, in some sense he doesn’t “care”, just following where evidence is brining him, initial goals, claims etc changing.
He did state though few times and very definitely that he doesn’t think brain produces consciousness but anything beyond that is speculation.
I can only repeat, resuscitation will have to first turn on all the much lower reflexes before “awakening” of consciousness may actually happen including (and especially) brain waves associated with normal mental states. That is completely against current neurophysiological paradigm but in line with reports of continued consciousness after cardiac arrest, don’t you think so?
And it is a footprint or biological marker how he coined that.
Not arguing just how I see it.
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OR,
Yeah the more I dive into this the more I see what you are saying. I spoke to a neuroscientist at University of Southern California about this and she stated things pretty amazingly.
She said brainwaves mean literally nothing about causation and these findings actually just create more problems for the physicalist explanations of consciousness. How are EEG readings happening with no metabolism in the brain, how is every shred of what we know about neuroscience of wakefulness and dreams and the communication between brain regions we have empirically tested to gain these states suddenly rendered meaningless because of the findings of brainwaves beyond cardiac arrest?
To wrap up her point she said what she thinks these scientists are getting at is these findings actually fall into an explanation of consciousness that there is actually some outside undiscovered force (immaterial consciousness) that is able to interact on parts of the brain when the brain we know through neuroscience is shut down whether it be by death, psychedelics, etc.
The brainwaves are a sign something is happening but their emergence at all, to her, just reinforced the fact that we have absolutely no idea how the brain could possibly create conscious experiences and may be more of an icon maker. As Donald Hoffman states as well.
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I forgot. She also said the EEG pattern that arises when an Apple is placed in front of you is almost the same as when you imagine an Apple sitting in front of you. By that alone, you can’t use brainwaves to prove or disprove reality. It takes the totality of evidence. Which I see in Sams language of late.
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Correct. It is a big kaboom to current views just not comprehended well yet across the board.
However materialism is not disproved through that. We simply don’t know what matter is and what form it can potentially take.
Back to Parnia’s experiments: first it removes misunderstanding that NDE is illusions or brain tricks or anything of that sort. That actually would be the case if it would be flatlined with no activity 100% cases or some odd deviations as you then have zero indication “something” is happening at all leaving doubts for everyone and not moving research forward an inch. Luckily it didn’t happen.
Ideally they should continue and I think they do on specific types of brain surgeries, when blood circulation is completely stopped. I would think developing stronger instruments and tools to detect brain waves (under circumstances of cardiac arrest and resuscitation) another direction. What they see is faintly weak and disappearing. They see just a bit of it. Increase detection power seems like a way to go. But setting up for that kind of experimental research is crazy expensive and complicated. He needs to repeat experiments and hype it to draw attention and money.
Ben, I understand as well, specific correlation may be interesting and additional but to overall understanding is not needed. You have direct reports from died people (returned back) and you have discovered brain activity after the fact, if say those brain waves would be totally random and weird, it would not mean anything, however according to Parnia team those are the same waves we get when we do exactly what people describing, concentrating, going through emotions etc. if this is the case it is a) unexplainable in the current framework of neuroscience b) extremely indicative that this is exactly NDE
The fact that we don’t know how the “matter” of consciousness interact with the brain is not relevant to this finding. It is a clear footprint.
ty.
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“specific correlation may be interesting and additional but to overall understanding is not needed”
Yes, it is
“You have direct reports from died people (returned back) and you have discovered brain activity after the fact,”
No, we don’t. Not one of the reports from people who died and came back and were interviewed had brain activity data. That is the point I am making.
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OR,
So, based on what information we have, what are your thoughts on what is happening here? What do you think consciousness is?
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No clue.
Excited as everyone else to see what tomorrow will bring to us.
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The latest Instagram post has some sort of poster showing the brain disinhibition hypothesis. Nothing has changed though, and I find it a bit misleading to say the least. They put the different bits of data next to each other implying association when they clearly state in the the paper that none of the people who had recollections had EEG data.
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Hi all! Long-time lurker here, finally commenting as things are (finally, imo) starting to get juicy with Parnia Lab!
I’m currently a Master’s student in philosophy, writing my graduate thesis on consciousness after death. So, naturally, I have been following Parnia et al for quite some time.
Honestly, at this point, I think what his team is trying to get at with their new disinhibition hypothesis is inadvertently (or, perhaps not so inadvertently) attempting to solve the interaction problem within Cartesian dualism. From what we know so far, it seems very clear that Parnia is, at least, *personally* condoning dualism in some type of way. From Erasing Death to his Bigelow essay, some bold statements in the Rethinking Death documentary, one-off comments in interviews, and so forth, there is no doubt to me that he ~personally~ takes a dualist-type stance about consciousness.
Being both a medical professional and a scientist, it makes sense to me that at times he can come across as “fence-sitting” because he has to stick with the evidence at hand. One can hypothesize & philosophize further, but of course, it would be ignorant to claim things as absolutely certain when one’s research only shows so much.
I am totally okay with being wrong, and most likely might be, but this is simply my two cents on all of the ambiguous back-and-forth we’ve been seeing from both Parnia and the lab. The man is trying to keep his research neutral, objective, and credible, whilst also having his own opinions given his decades in the field and so on. But, if we are, as a society, comfortable enough to say confidently that REDs are no longer illusions, dreams, etc., and that there is compelling evidence to show consciousness may be an unidentified type of entity (as Parnia has also previously put it), we have got to show how the material and immaterial interact with one another, how the physical “filters” the non-physical, if/how the non-physical can impact the physical, and so forth. Alas, the interaction problem — and ultimately where I think Parnia is trying to take this all. 🙂
~Maranda
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Well put, and thanks for coming out of the shadows!
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Ben, I got your point clearly and from the very start, asked few times, say you have brain waves from someone with specific NDE report, then what? What that will help to achieve?
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It means that you can say they are associated and therefore say this supports the kind of hypothesis that Parnia proposes. At the moment the data doesn’t support any hypothesis. That’s how evidence and science works.
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Just to add, I don’t want to create any acrimony over this, but I am a scientist, and believe in integrity of research and claims made from them, and get a bit miffed with some of the sloppy stuff that gets thrown around. Thomas’ comment from earlier really bought home to me how tenuous Parnia’s position is, and if anything the data at the moment would support EEG NOT being associated with recollections. However, such a claim is a stretch because the numbers are too small…but it is less of stretch than saying it IS associated.
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Ben,
I sympathize, however there are multiple discrepancies , I don’t mean to chase you at all! I am familiar with all kinds of research. Science is moving ahead in multiple ways and forms, I am sure you would agree, theoretical physics had at times little practical support or experiential data, doesn’t stop anyone from producing. Correlation by itself doesn’t mean much, we can correlate sun spots with unreal amount of events on the earth yet without mechanism it means nothing.
Ben, you are not answering the question: say you have correlation, or say you have no and only pure flatline brain just nothing. Can you highlight what it is proving or disproving?
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Hi OR,
Apologies, I have been misunderstanding you. I’ve been in a meeting for a couple of days with doctors discussing data and research, and it is easy to get caught up in the detail. So, now I will try to answer your question properly.
You are right, correlating an NDE with EEG activity would not prove anything, other than EEG activity occurs when someone has and NDE. However, while to those of us who are thinking, it could mean one of two things – the brain is causing the NDE or the NDE is causing the brain activity, the materialists, who are in ascendency in our culture, would claim victory. So while in terms of truth it would not mean much, in the world of man it would mean a lot. That is why I think Parnia has come up with his cunning plan. He’s a highly intelligent man, he is not Baldrick, and I suspect that he knows full well that his theory holds no more water in the absence of correlation or even association, than the materialist explanation, and that is why he is bringing it out now.
There are a couple of situations in which EEG data (or the lack of) would be of material significance. I will create a flow chart to explain for a new post later today.
Just to finish though. While correlation of brain activity with an NDE…something in itself very hard to attain…would provide evidence for either of the competing theories, it would not prove either. Lastly, at the moment, we have neither correlation or even association, and if anything we have a tiny bit of evidence suggesting NDEs and brain activity may not be associated.
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