near to death episodes: latest study (Endings)

by dhw, Sunday, November 05, 2017, 13:34 (2576 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The 'soon become undetectable' is 4-20 seconds. Please accept that short time. The cortex is NO LONGER functional. The nonfunctioning cells die in 4-6 minutes if no resuscitation.
dhw: “No longer functional” is not the same as “dead”. You keep emphasizing function and the short time before the cells die. I keep emphasizing that the cortex of these patients does NOT die, and function is not necessarily confined to the outward signs (reflexes etc.).
DAVID: Function is also represented by the flat EEG, for which you have no answer. Medical science at this time states a flat line means no function. Your suggestion is a possibility for which there is no current evidence.

All my comments concern the "evidence" being presented by Parnia and by you, and I can only comment on the logic of your conclusions as based on that evidence. We have a mystery: despite the “flat EEG”, some patients are conscious of events going on around them. Medical science “at this time” offers NO solution. Here are two possibilities:

1) that the cortex, which has not died, may still be conscious though outwardly non-functional. Of course this suggestion is “a possibility for which there is no current evidence”. You say Parnia’s “burst of energy” is irrelevant, so I don’t know why he makes such a big thing of it. But you also say: “Some strange deeper EEG spikes have been seen sporadically, but are poorly understood.” Now you tell me these spikes may come from areas that are not considered a part of awareness. “May” is the operative word. Maybe they don’t come from there, or maybe those areas ARE part of awareness. “At this time” we don’t know.

2) that consciousness exists independently of the cortex in the form of a “soul” which survives the death of the body. This suggestion is a possibility for which Parnia’s articles and medical science “at this time” provide no evidence. According to you: “We have full knowledge of cortical function in a reversed way: cortically damaged patients lose part of their mental/conscious capacities.” Hardly full if "at this time" there are questions concerning the cortex which we can't answer. But in any case the materialist can say this knowledge provides evidence that the cortex is the source of mental/conscious capacities.

I am not, however, arguing for dualism or for materialism. I am merely pointing out that Parnia’s articles do not provide evidence that we have a “soul” which survives death, since BOTH suggested unproven hypotheses would solve the mystery he has set us. But I stand by my argument that the materialist solution does NOT solve the mystery of information acquired about events that take place outside the operating theatre. Parnia’s articles make no mention of these.