The probability is based on the criteria of what makes testimonial evidence strong, which I gave on page one. So based on numbers of reports, variety of reports, consistency of reports, first-hand accounts, and objective corroboration, one can infer that (as in an inductive argument) there is strong support for the conclusion.

We do this all the time based on testimonial evidence, this is nothing new. For example, if you have 20 people who witnessed an accident you can draw certain conclusions based on the testimony of the witnesses, that is, you can determine how likely it is that something occurred. Moreover, you can do it with the 5 criteria I used. Thus, as I argued, again based on the strength of the testimonials, I can reasonably say there is a high probability that consciousness survives bodily death.

This idea of absolute or relative "levels of awareness" sounds highly implausible given the close correspondence of OBEs, NDEs and lucid dreaming and how each supposedly distinct category of experience lacks any essential identifier, with examples of each 'category' spanning the conceivable spectrum of conscious experience, each example emphasising different sensory modalities and parts of volitional agency, language processing, attention and memory , that aren't always amplified or attenuated in the same direction. — sime

I'm not sure I follow your point. You don't see how levels of awareness change between dream states and waking states? Moreover, there is no correspondence between NDEs and lucid dreaming in the sense that they are even close to equivalent. One knows when one is having a lucid dream, at least most of us do, and lucid dreams have a dreamlike quality that's not even close to what we experience on an everyday basis. NDEs, as I'm contending, are as reality like as you can get, in fact people claim that it's more real than real, it's hyper-real.

Of course there are different sensory modalities. There are different sensory modalities in our everyday experiences. The question is, why aren't these experiences veridical? Your claims seem to be very general. I've given you the reasons why I think they're veridical.

I don't think the evidence for past lives is credible based on the testimonials of memories alone. I do think there is support though based on NDE testimonials, and if one couples those reports with other reports, such as those who have had DMT experiences, then it seems to me that there is evidence to support the idea.

I thought some of you might be interested in Sir Roger Penrose's talk on "The Quantum Nature of Consciousness." It's just a short discussion. However, if you're interested in some of his longer discussions, Youtube has those videos too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WXTX0IUaOg

In my view, reincarnation is natural, expected, and metaphysically-implied.

Nisargadatta said that maybe sometimes someone can remember some little bit about a past life.

I'm not saying that can be completely ruled out.

I just feel that metaphysical support is the stronger support for there being reincarnation.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't disagree with the statement that there's probably reincarnation. I just haven't seen the NDE reports that mentioned past lives.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't know of any metaphysical support for past lives.

I don't know of any metaphysical support for past lives. — Sam26

I said that there's metaphysical support for reincarnation

In an earlier reply to you, I said that past lives are indeterminate, even in principle. This life doesn't need an explanation by a past life, but, among the infinitely-many life-possibility-stories, there's surely or nearly surely one that would lead to this one.

I've been posting quite a bit about the metaphysical support for reincarnation. Maybe I should summarize it here a bit, but I'll try to be brief.

I've been pointing out that there can be complex systems of inter-referring inevitable abstract if-then facts about hypotheticals,

Among the infinity of such logical systems, there's inevitably one whose events and relations match those of this physical universe. There's no reason to believe that our universe is other than that.

Yes, this universe could have some other sort of reality and existence, some objective reality or existence, but that would be superfluous, and a brute-fact. ...and the suggestion of it is an unfalsifiable proposition.

Describing this from the point of view of individual experience, because our physical information comes from our experience, I often refer to those logical systems as "life-experience possibility-stories". That's what it is, for us.

I point out that the reason why you're in a life is because there's a life-experience possibility-story about someone like you. Someone just like you. ...in fact, you.

I also point out that, whatever is the reason why this life began, then, at the end of this life, if that reason still obtains, then what would you expect?

The beginning of a life, just as happened before, for the same reason.

The testimonial evidence is overwhelmingly convincing, that, early in death, there are the experiences reported in the NDEs.

What about later?

As shutdown proceeds, you eventually won't remember your recent life. But presumably there will remain the subconscious inherited and acquired feelings and inclinations about life, including a will for life, and a future-orientation.

In Vedanta, those influences are called "Vasanas".

Those Vasanas will be consistent with those of someone at the beginning of a life. You'll no longer remember or be in your previous life, but you'll still be in a life-experience possibility-story, because, due to the Vasanas, there is a life-experience possibility-story about you. You're the protagonist in a life-experience possibility-story.

According to Eastern tradition, there are a very, very few people who are life-completed enough that there are no more needs, wants, lacks, strong inclinations, or un-discharged consequences. Such a person doesn't have the Vasanas that lead to a next life. Such a person reaches a well-deserved quiet and peaceful Timeless sleep instead.

Michael Ossipoff

Your argument is mostly speculation, and based on what's possible. Lots of things are possible, but not very probable. You don't give any evidence.

We do have some evidence based on testimonials of past lives, and some of what might happen later, but not much. You say reincarnation, and that is based on Eastern religions I presume, but I don't see any evidence to support that idea, only metaphysical speculation.

I didn't say that reincarnation is certain. I said it's implied, is to be expected. I said "probably".

We can agree to disagree about what's probable.

Evidence or proof? I've told why I'd expect valid testimonial evidence to be rare or nonexistent. (...but not entirely ruled out.)

As I've said, I've read a lot of NDE reports, and I've never encountered one that spoke of past lives. That's why I said that the only support for reincarnation is metaphysical.

Michael Ossipoff

I don't mind disagreement, don't get me wrong, I'm just trying to understand your position.

I've read and listened to many thousands of NDEs and have heard people talk about living other lives. I'm not sure of the percentage that make this claim, it's not very high. I'll try to give you a link to one of the testimonials.

Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body

Since testimony can only be given by a surviving body, not testimonial can be offered in evidence.
This is therefore an empty thread.

Sounds more like an empty post. We're talking about near death experiences, not death experiences - obviously there's a difference. Moreover, there are things we can learn about death, since people are reporting what they see when they leave the body.

My question is - why post if you don't have anything of value to say? It's a philosophy forum, generally we give arguments, not opinions. I have no problem if someone wants to attack the argument, but I have little patience for people who give empty-headed opinions.

I'm not sure I follow your point. You don't see how levels of awareness change between dream states and waking states? Moreover, there is no correspondence between NDEs and lucid dreaming in the sense that they are even close to equivalent. One knows when one is having a lucid dream, at least most of us do, and lucid dreams have a dreamlike quality that's not even close to what we experience on an everyday basis. NDEs, as I'm contending, are as reality like as you can get, in fact people claim that it's more real than real, it's hyper-real. — Sam26

No that is generally false. Lucid Dreams can be appear to be as equally real as reality. I think you are only thinking of spontaneous, low quality lucid dreams that occur when tired in nightly sleep. In contrast, wake-induced lucid dreaming that is deliberately achieved by a fully awake subject in the daytime through deep meditation or falling asleep consciously can indeed seem hyper-real. This explains why occultists have insisted on referring to them as Out-of-Body experiences, or astral projection.

There simply isn't a convincing reason to distinguish dream states from "out of body experiences" on the basis of hallucinatory/sensory phenomena.

If you don't believe me, why not try it???

I do believe people can experience an OBE while in a deeply meditative state. And my inclination is to think that OBEs can occur without experiencing trauma as most do when having an NDE. If this is what you mean by lucid dreaming, then we're just using different words to describe the same thing. When I refer to lucid dreaming I'm referring to what most people call lucid dreaming, that is, that low quality dream state while somewhat awake.

There is a correspondence between all OBEs, that is, what they experience is hyper-real. I haven't studied many of these states. However, I have done some research into DMT, which is an amazing experience. If I had the chance I'd try it myself just to have the experience.

Here's a really interesting video between Sam Harris and David Chalmers on the hard problem of consciousness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bmHL1sbntw

David Wallace giving a contrary view.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQbjP5XjEnA

My question is - why post if you don't have anything of value to say — Sam26

I have plenty of value to say.
One person talks bollocks, so it is my duty to call you up on that.
Near-death, is NOT death.

Near-death, is NOT death. — charleton

It's the beginning of death.

That's of interest.

Michael Ossipoff

That's the point, they're called NEAR DEATH experiences - not death experiences.

And so have nothing to do with consciousness "surviving the body"
QED the thread is empty.

Very interesting video by David Bohm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI66ZglzcO0

I'm thinking about attending a conference on The Science of Consciousness, which will be held on April 2-7, 2018 in Tucson, AZ. Those of you who are able and interested should come.

https://eagle.sbs.arizona.edu/sc/index.php

Is consciousness entirely physical...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApXndYEpQhs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eskWYOH-Oxs

This is an interesting video about Richard Feynman "The World From Another Point of View"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNhlNSLQAFE

I joined lately and bypassed almost all previous comments, don't really know where to start with. But I am inline with your thoughts. One thing is that I don't believe science will help resolve your issue.
Someone from the right beginning of this thread has introduced a Wikipedia article about NDEs that I am sure you have read.
"Neuroscience research suggests that an NDE is a subjective phenomenon resulting from "disturbed bodily multisensory integration" that occurs during life-threatening events." - Wikipedia

Your five points can't stand up with such a research.I don't need to argue about flaws here and there. It appears in your elaboration there is a mix-up between social science and natural science while the two are yet to merge.
For example, "Testimonial evidence" should be replaced by a scientific evidence I believe. At least because it comes from legislative meanings. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/differences-between-testimonial-documentary-real-evidence-barbour

Back to the researches that Wikipedia referenced. Under "Afterlife claims and skeptical responses", it's said many prominent researchers supported your ideas but they still need to prove such phenomena can not be obtained using "conventional means". Now this is a dead end, always to any scientific research about supernatural phenomena, let it be NDEs, UFOs, ...etc.
How can one prove an earthly phenomenon cannot be from another earthly cause? I mean you are grabbing a cat's tail and prove it's not from a cat. Anything - super or trivial - that reflects to us must be via earthly objects, name it air, light, particles and forces ... the challenge is bound to fail right from setup.
In other words, proofs should be considered as unnecessary or even silly to get involved. You don't need proofs to know that you must breath to live, despite extremists would say something like without evidence of suffocation then we'd never know if that is fatal at all.
The point here is when saying about supernatural things, you need something beyond any proofs or pure earthly - your belief and innate sense.
Further, why would one need agreements on super phenomenon? You see yours, I see mine - we rarely agree except for certain shallow, trivial aspects. This belongs to a very profound topic we can talk further if there's enough interests.

Your five points can't stand up with such a research.I don't need to argue about flaws here and there. It appears in your elaboration there is a mix-up between social science and natural science while the two are yet to merge.
For example, "Testimonial evidence" should be replaced by a scientific evidence I believe. At least because it comes from legislative meanings. — Dzung

The link you provide that gives an overview of different kinds of evidence isn't a very good one. What we want to know, and what I'm concerned with is the different ways in which we arrive at knowledge (justified true belief). There are many ways to justify a belief, and testimony is one of the ways we justify believing that something is true. In fact, much of what we believe is a matter of testimony. When you sit in a class room listening to a lecture you're listening to the testimony of an expert on the subject (hopefully), or at least someone who is knowledgeable. Granted testimonial evidence is not scientific evidence, and much of the time it can be very weak, but my point at the beginning of this thread was to show what kind of testimonial evidence is strong, that is, what makes for strong testimonial evidence. Furthermore, much of what makes for strong testimonial evidence is the same as what makes a strong inductive argument. So I'm applying rules that make testimonial evidence strong to NDEs, because my concern, and the concern of others is about truth, that is, is it true that people who experience an NDE are experiencing something real. No doubt they're having a real experience, just like people who have dreams have real experiences, but the question isn't whether it's a real experience, but is it an objective reality. For example, would it follow from these experiences that consciousness survives bodily existence? My contention is that there is overwhelming evidence that these experiences give strong evidence of the survival of consciousness after the death of the body, and that we retain our individuality.

Also I'm not mixing up social science with natural science, in fact, I make a distinction between scientific knowledge and the knowledge that comes in other ways, namely, knowledge that comes from testimonial evidence. And since testimonial evidence is seen in just about every subject area it is something that isn't confined to one area of study. It is seen in virtually every area of study. In fact, it's so pervasive that to doubt much of it would collapse most of what we know.

We are still far away at two ends while I have asserted agreement with your NDE belief: I dissuade any proofs and you defend your testimonial evidence (TE). Well, have you thought about strongest possible TEs and what's the use of them finally? I can claim I personally don't believe any known truths as ultimate, say Newtonian findings are still good nowadays but they don't keep the highest position any more compare to quantum and general relativity which in turn - although survived a century - will be relegated sooner or later.

Kindly share with me what points don't you agree with in this article?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/

The evidence that I cite is not a proof, that is, it's not deductive but inductive. So what I'm saying is that what I claim to know is based on what's probably the case, as opposed to what's necessarily the case. I'm not claiming that we know with absolute certainty in this case.

I understand that you agree with the testimonials for NDEs, but you don't agree that we can know it to be the case, that is, know it as true (maybe subjectively in your case, I'm not sure).

I agree with much of the sentiment in the article you cited, but much of it doesn't apply to what I'm saying. If you have specific questions, I'll answer, but I'm not going to go through that complete article and cite everything I agree with or don't agree with. It would take too much time. It sounds like our disagreement is epistemological in nature.

Sam, we are closer. I haven't fully read the article myself and the only thing emerged from it to me is the weakness of testimonials. Nevertheless we don't need them, strong or weak. Yes I am subjective because I have recently found it's more important than being objective. Finally what's the most important on earth anyway? Isn't that yourself, or your - self? I referred to proofs or strongest testimonials just to let them down.
People are in the mainstream of science and tend to assume that being objective is better, or at least fashionably modern. I have been quite objective being educated in the same way until this very moment that I am still but trying to get rid of it.
Being subjective doesn't mean blindly stick to your prejudices. To me it's the only way to supernatural worlds where the NDE we are about is about. I am bit surprised you support it while trying to be objective. Maybe that's the reason why you still have suspects. Let's get it straight I have not seen or felt anything supernatural - I believe you neither hence your hesitation. But for a good reason I have been connecting all what I know and heard, seen...etc and found my doubts are fading day by day.
Just a side note: I used to love Feynman's videos too, and his friend's Susskind's who is still a top figure in science. Plus Sir Penrose's. Of whom I think Penrose is the most Platonist and he has expressed doubts in a subtle way by saying we don't know much about connections between the 3 worlds: physical, maths and mind. For Susskind, even more subtle when he denied his belief in God while strongly believes this world being a reflection of some remote truth - in connection with his famous Holographic Principle works.
Once Feynman said if science needs to be like a multi-layered onion then so be it. But that also means being objective or scientific is no more than being fashionable. And fashion changes fast, what stays then? Isn't it your-self?

Sam, we are closer. I haven't fully read the article myself and the only thing emerged from it to me is the weakness of testimonials. Nevertheless we don't need them, strong or weak. Yes I am subjective because I have recently found it's more important than being objective. Finally what's the most important on earth anyway? Isn't that yourself, or your - self? I referred to proofs or strongest testimonials just to let them down. — Dzung

Actually we are very far apart in terms of how we should arrive at correct beliefs or true beliefs. It may be true that our beliefs are similar, that is, that we both believe that NDEs are real. However, where we differ, and I think this is a major difference, is in how we determine whether a statement or belief is true. So in technical jargon, we have major epistemological differences, which I pointed out, somewhat, in my last post. For example, there are subjective truths, I wouldn't deny that, but when it comes to evaluating the truth of testimonial evidence, it isn't about what someone happens to believe, it's about whether these beliefs are objectively true. Just because someone believes that something is true, that doesn't make it true. Generally speaking subjective truths depend on the subject, what they think or feel is true, that is, it's minds or mind-dependent. If truth was a matter of what you or I believe is true, then anything can be true or false depending on what the subject believes. Given this idea, it would naturally follow that truth would largely have no foothold, that is, it would be meaningless.

If we compare a subjective truth to an objective truth the contrast couldn't be more stark. For example, it's objectively true that the Earth has one moon, the truth of this statement has nothing to do with your subjective belief. Your subjective belief may or may not line up with objective reality. Subjective truths, once again, depend on the subject, for example, "I like oranges" is a subjective truth. The truth of the statement is dependent on the subject "me," it's not like the statement "The Earth has one moon," which is not dependent upon a mind or minds, but is dependent upon the nature of objective reality.

there are subjective truths, I wouldn't deny that, but when it comes to evaluating the truth of testimonial evidence, it isn't about what someone happens to believe, it's about whether these beliefs are objectively true. — Sam26

I think a point you’re missing is that there might be things that can only be known in the first person, that are true, but not necessarily ‘objective’. I mean, if you restrict the criterion for what constitutes an ‘objective fact’ to the empirical sciences, then basically you’ve fallen into some form of positivism. Conversely, there might be things that I subjectively believe that might, as you suggest, be peculiar to me and hence only subjective. But there might also be subjective experiences that relay some class of fact that is *not* amenable to a purely objective account. They are therefore ‘first person’, but not necessarily subjective in the sense of being ‘peculiar to myself’; others, in a similar condition, i.e. undergoing an NDE, might report similar experiences, which are however beyond empirical reproduction, on account of their being intrinsically ‘first person’. I think in such cases they fall outside the duality of ‘objective vs subjective’.

Consider for example the book of the neuroscientist, Proof of Heaven, by Eben Alexander. He is adamant that he underwent a profound experience of ‘the next world’ whilst clinically brain-dead. It goes without saying that the sceptics will say that this is simply a subjective fantasy or illusion. He insists not. But I don’t think there is any way of arriving at an objective assessment of his claims, as the kind of experience that he reported must necessarily be out of scope for the natural sciences.

The other point I would take issue with, is the implication that objectivity is absolute or indubitable. I certainly do agree there is a domain of facts to which objective statements can be applied - but it is something of a moveable feast, especially in our day and age, when ‘all that is solid melts into the air’, to allude to a book on postmodernism. I mean, it is indubitable to me that some matters of fact are objectively the case, but in this case the subject under discussion is, again, one which by its nature is beyond the purview of natural science.