The limitations of science (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 02, 2010, 23:31 (5378 days ago) @ George Jelliss

David referred us to two Pim van Lommel articles on the subject of NDEs.-GEORGE: It's all just anecdote and fanciful speculation based on wish fulfilment. Nothing definite there at all.-In his response to my post on homeopathy, in which I pronounced myself unqualified to make a judgement, George wrote: "It seems dhw is unable to trust anyone, certainly not anyone calling themselves a scientist, and has to carry out his own experiments." On subjects related to religion, I confess to a degree of scepticism when scientists draw subjective conclusions from their scientific findings, and I'm not about to cast my vote in favour of life after death. However, my scepticism is nothing compared to George's. I would not dream of dismissing the research carried out by scientists such as van Lommel, Michael Sabom and David Turell as "just anecdote and fanciful speculation", bearing in mind that science has so far failed utterly to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. A religious agenda like Sabom's does not invalidate the research any more than Dawkins' anti-religious agenda invalidates his. In response to George's comment, I would say: "It seems George is unable to trust anyone, including anyone calling themselves a scientist, who has had personal experiences or has conducted systematic research which might possibly cast doubt on George's own conclusions." However, I'm talking only about trusting in the reality of the experiences and the research. The conclusions of the believers are no more and no less subjective than those of George the unbeliever. -In my view, Pim van Lommel has raised some unanswerable questions about the nature of consciousness, but in the passages where he does speculate on the possible implications, I found myself constantly confronted by one particular anomaly. If the brain acts as both receiver and transmitter, but consciousness itself is engendered by something independent of the brain cells, this has to be a feature common to all of us. In other words, no matter whose brain is dead, consciousness ought to continue. However, out of 344 cases, in only 62 was there any kind of conscious experience. Those 62 had virtually nothing that might be called common ground, and van Lommel himself seems at a loss to explain why the remaining 282 had no recollection. He then concentrates, understandably, on the 62, of whom only 23 had a "deep" experience. In his conclusion to the first article, van Lommel suggests that we should "consider the possibility that death, like birth, may well be a mere passing from one state of consciousness to another." I'm certainly prepared to consider that possibility, just as I'm prepared to consider the possibility that consciousness ends with death, and that consciousness is or is not the product of the physical brain, but in weighing up the pros and cons, I would very much like to have some idea why an independently functioning and surviving consciousness should fail to manifest itself in 82% of the cases studied.