Introduction: The Shoeholder to the Non-Soul Sole

In a now-closed thread, RfM poster, “Just Browsing” (JB), cited as supposed truth of the spiritualistic notions of “near-death experiences” and (NDEs)/“out-of-body experiences” (OBEs), the much-ballyhood and over-hyped case of “Maria’s Shoe.” It was yet another futile attempt to defend NDEs and OBEs (as "living" proof of an afterlife and of disembodied spirits who can see without optic nerves and think without brain stems) by first comparing discussion of this topic in the forum to a game of chess where FB holds all the science pieces:

“It’s like squares on a chess board: You have 64; 63 are Steve Benson's pseudo-science theories and the last one is ‘I don't see it that way.’” In devoted defense of the alleged reality of NDEs/OBEs, (along with their supporting cast and props OF immortal ghosts, tunnels of light and keen-eyed spiritual observers hovering over terra-firma operating tables), JB insists that opposition to the idea of NDEs/OBEs is rooted in rotten science because here, JB dramatically insists, is the evidence to prove it:

“What about the hospital patient who died on the table, and when she was bought back explained that she saw from above that there was a running shoe on the roof ? (Which was later verified). The only thing is, the roof was inaccessible from 4 floors down.

“Yep, the cranial cavity can do really weird things, like transport a dead patient up to the roof and show her a running shoe, all while she was dead on the operating table !!

“JB”

(“NDEs/OBEs are a Demonstrable Intra-Cranial Reality,” by “Just Browsing,” on “Recovery from Mormonism” discussion board, 25 August 2014, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1362554,1363204#msg-1363204)


Yep, what about it?

The case is actually a prime example of “much a shoe about nothing “ The assertion that it somehow represents the triumph of human apparitions over death is readily debunkable when the facts are examined in all their deadly detail.

But before shooing way the Shallow Story of the Souless Shoe, let’s first examine the basic components of what NDEs and OBEs are all about.
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Part 1

--The Occult ABCs of NDEs

In their article debunking NDEs, entitled "Maria's Near-Death Experience: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop," authors Hayden Ebbern, Sean Mulligan and Barry L. Beverstein of Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada) accurately describe the core of supernaturalist NDE belief as being comprised of: four basic elements:

1) dualistic spiritualism bordering on

2) the occult, which is

3) religiously-rooted in faith, and which is

4) not factually-footed in science.

The authors describe NDEs as essentially being "comforting beliefs" which their faithful adherents hold to "as evidence for survival of the soul"--a belief, the authors say, "is perhaps the most comforting belief of all."

Ebbern, et al, explain what is meant by the term "near-death experience,” as witnessed by the public frenzy these episodes have stirred in the hearts of believers yearning for human immortality:

"Since Raymond Moody ('Life After Life,' 1975, New York: Bantam) coined the term 'near-death experience' to describe a reasonably consistent set of experience recalled by about a third of those who are resuscitated after near-fatal incidents, such descriptions have been welcomed with enthusiasm by a large segment of the public.

"The NDE typically begins with a sense of serenity and relief, followed by a felling that the self is leaving the body (the 'out-of-body experience,' or OBE). From this vantage point, the disembodied self sometimes feels that it is observing attempts to revive its lifeless body.

"A subset of those who reach the OBE stage further reports being propelled through a spiral tunnel toward a bright light. For some, the light eventually resolves into a significant religious figure, deceased relative or friend, vista of paradise, etc. As rescue procedures begin to take effect, these patients often report feeling great reluctance at being pulled back into the painful, uncertain everyday world. . . .

"Although reports of NDEs have accumulated over the centuries, the rate seems to have increased dramatically in recent times. This is likely due to vast improvements in emergency medicine, coupled with a resurgence of religious fundamentalism worldwide. The spiritual interpretation of NDEs is reinforced by the mass media which prosper by pandering to public longings of all sorts.

"The concept of personal immortality is, in the final analysis, a metaphysical proposition that can only be accepted on faith . . . . While faith alone used to be sufficient to bolster such convictions, the growing prestige of science has left many more sophisticated believers uneasy in the absence of more solid proof of an afterlife. In response, a field of 'near-death studies' has emerged with the thinly-veiled agenda of providing a scientific gloss for religious views of an afterlife.

"About the same time, there emerged another field known as 'anomalistic psychology'. . . . It accepts that experiences such as NDEs and OBEs can seem exceedingly real to those who have them, but offers many reasons to doubt their reality outside the mind of the percipient . . . . Anomalistic psychology seeks naturalistic explanations for various seemingly supernatural states of consciousness based on sound psychological and neurophysiological research."

The authors then commence a successful logical assault on the post-death notion of "dualism":

"To accept notions such as survival after death, disembodied minds and a host of other parapsychological phenomena, one must adopt some form of the philosophical doctrine known as dualism.

“. . . . Dualism asserts that mind is fundamentally different from the physical body, essentially equivalent to the religious concept of any immaterial ‘soul.’

“If dualism is correct, it is possible, some say, for ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ to disengage temporarily from the body but still retain self-awareness and the ability to gather information and interact physically with the environment. Many dualists also believe that their spiritual selves are immortal and that they will eventually abandon their physical bodies and assume a separate existence in some other realm.

“All of this is impossible from the standpoint of material monists, who assert that mind is equivalent to and inseparable from the functioning of individual brains."

The authors proceed to link NDE belief to devotion to doctrines of both the occult and religious fundamentalism:

"Not surprisingly, NDE accounts are welcomed by many occultists because they appear to be a major impediment to the materialist worldview they find so distasteful. Likewise, in fundamentalists circles, NDEs are hailed as a vindication for various spiritual teachings.

“Materialists readily concede that the subjective experiences of the NDE FEEL compellingly real. Indeed, they contend that NDEs helped suggest the concept of the immortal soul to our ancestors in the first place.

“Despite the subjective realness of the NDE, however, modern neuroscience offers not only a wealth of reasons to doubt the possibility of disembodied minds, but it also provides much evidence that the compelling subjective phenomena of the NDE can be generated by known brain mechanisms . . . .

“Believers counter that the NDE seems too real to have been a dream or hallucination but they forget that what we MEAN by the term 'hallucination' is an internally-generated experience so detailed, emotional and believable that it is indistinguishable from ordinary perceptions of reality . . . ."

The authors further note that these so-called "near-death experiences" are "always reported by people who have not really died,” even though NDE advocates believed they have. This false assumption, the author explain, is because “[w]ith the advent of modern resuscitation techniques, . . . it [has] bec[o]me possible in some cases to restore breathing and pulse, often as long as several minutes after they have died. During CPA [cardiopulmonary arrest], the brain undergoes several biochemical and physiological changes but by relying on its limited back-ups of stored oxygen and metabolic fuels, certain aspects of consciousness can be sustained, albeit in a somewhat degraded fashion. Thus, if the resuscitation is successful, it is not surprising that there might be some residual memories from the time one was dying, but not yet dead.

"That there should be some overlap in the recollections of the minority of revived CPA patients who recall anything from the interval tells us more about how the brain ordinarily creates our sense of self and the feeling that there is an external reality than it does about the possibility of an afterlife. Much can be learned from studying the orderly fashion in which these internally-constructed models shut down when the brain is traumatized but because those who have been revived did not reach the irreversible state of brain death, any experiences they recall cannot be said to have come from 'the other side.'"

The authors also point out that NDEs are hardly unique to claims of near-death "proofs" of after-death "reality":

"Furthermore, the subjective contents of the NDE are anything but unique to the onset of death. The basic elements of the NDE are common to hallucinations of various sorts; i.e., they are also found in psychedelic drug states, psychoses and migraine and epileptic attacks . . . . Similar experiences have been reported in a surprisingly high proportion of those who panic during natural disasters, when they are psychologically traumatized but in no real physical danger . . . .

"If, as is indeed the case, the components of the NDE have plausible roots in brain physiology, this undermines the argument that they are a glimpse of the afterlife rather than a rich and very believable hallucination.

“It is for this reason that accounts of NDEs that contain elements that are logically incompatible with the hallucination hypothesis assume special importance.

“One attempt to gather objective evidence of this sort, rather than the usual anecdotal, after-the-fact accounts, has been initiated by the British psychiatrist, Peter Fenwick . . . . . He has had messages placed on ledges, above eye level, in the operating theaters of the hospital where he works. If a surgical patient should have an NDE/OBE, then his or her free-floating mind should be able to read the otherwise inaccessible message and recall it upon re-awakening. As yet, no one has been able to provide this kind of objective evidence, which would admittedly create serious problems for the materialist view of mind.

“In the absence of such strong proof, the spiritually-inclined must fall back on the next best thing: those cases where it seems highly unlikely that the revived person could have known certain things unless his or her fully-conscious spiritual self had been observing from outside the body."

In light of lack of compelling evidence for NDEs and OBEs allegedly representing real experiences occurring outside the realm of the physical body and/or brain, the authors conclude with this cautionary reminder from Demosthenes, offered some two millennia ago:

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit, for what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."

(Hayden Ebbern, Sean Mulligan and Barry L. Beverstein "Maria's Near-Death Experience: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop," under the subhead, "Maria's NDE," pp. 4-11, original emphasis, reprinted in "Skeptical Inquirer," Vol. 20, No. 4, July/August 1996)

Part 1, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363723#msg-1363723

Part 2, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363724#msg-1363724

Part 3. at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363726#msg-1363726

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Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2014 05:55AM by steve benson.

Part 2

--Putting a Shoe to the Posterior the “Mariah Shoe” Tale

Ebbern, et al, proceed to untie the irrationally-tangled laces of the “Mariah’s Shoe” story, exposing it as anything but compelling evidence for a supposed NDE/OBE:

". . . [T]his case, often touted as the best in the area of near-death studies, is far from unassailable, as its proponents assert. [There are] several factual discrepancies and plausible ways that Maria's supposedly unobtainable knowledge could have been gained by quite ordinary means.

"On delving into this issue, we were first disappointed, then amused, that such a weak case should have achieved the importance it has been accorded.

"Ring and Lawrence (1993) certainly must have spoken in haste when they issued their challenge, for rather than '. . . arresting the skeptic's argument in mid-sentence . . .' investigation of Maria's story merely reveals the naivete and power of wishful thinking in the supposedly scientific area known as 'near-death studies.'" (ibid)

The NDE/OBE supposedly manifested in the soulless sole of the “Mariah Shoe” saga was given another solid boot to the butt by RfM poster “Finally Free (FF),” who inconveniently pointed out to “JB” that “the whole thing [was] debunked . . . because . . . the running shoe in question was on the roof and was easily visible from a number of vantage points.”

As proof, “FF” pointed to to an article by author Keith Augustine, “Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences” (which I have cited, as well, in past discussions on the subject):

“Maria's Shoe

“In 1984 Kimberly Clark (now Kimberly Clark Sharp) reported a sensational case of apparent veridical [meaning 'genuine' or 'truthful'] paranormal perception during an NDE. Seven years earlier, in April 1977, an out-of-town migrant worker known only as ‘Maria’ was admitted to the coronary care unit of Seattle's Harborview Medical Center after a heart attack.

“Three days later, Maria had a second heart attack while still hospitalized and was quickly resuscitated. When Clark came to check on Maria's condition later that day, Maria reported an OBE where she witnessed her resuscitation from above, noting printouts flowing from the machines monitoring her vital signs.

“Next, she reported becoming distracted by something over the area surrounding the emergency room entrance and 'willing herself' outside of the hospital. She accurately described the area surrounding the emergency room entrance, which Clark found curious since a canopy over the entrance would have obstructed Maria's view if she had simply looked out of her hospital room window.

“Maria then became distracted by something on a third-floor window ledge on the far side of the hospital, 'willing herself' to this location as well. From this apparent vantage point, she noted a left-foot man's tennis shoe on a third-floor window ledge. She described the shoe as dark blue with a worn-out patch over the little toe and a single shoelace tucked under its heel. To corroborate her story, Maria asked Clark to go look for the shoe (Clark, pp. 242-43).

“Unable to see anything from outside the hospital at ground level, Clark reports, she proceeded to search room-to-room on the floor above Maria's room, pressing her face hard against the windows to see their ledges. Eventually she came across the reported shoe in one of the rooms, but insisted that she could not see the worn-out toe facing outward or the tucked-in shoelace from inside the room. Clark then removed the shoe from the ledge (p. 243).

“Kenneth Ring and Madelaine Lawrence hail the report as one of most convincing cases of veridical paranormal perception during NDEs on record:

“’[T]he facts of the case seem incontestable. Maria's inexplicable detection of that inexplicable shoe is a strange and strangely beguiling sighting of the sort that has the power to arrest the skeptic's argument in mid-sentence, if only by virtue of its indisputable improbability’ (Ring and Lawrence, p. 223).

“This case has taken on the status of something of an urban legend, allegedly demonstrating that Maria learned things during her OBE that she could not have possibly known about other than by actually leaving her body.

“But as Hayden Ebbern, Sean Mulligan and Barry Beyerstein make clear, the details Maria reported were in fact quite accessible to her through ordinary sense perception and inference.
“In 1994 Ebbern and Mulligan visited Harborview to survey the sites where the NDE took place and to interview Clark. They were unable to locate ‘Maria’ or anyone who knew her personally and suspect that she is now deceased (Ebbern, Mulligan, and Beyerstein, p. 30). They examined each of the details of Clark's report and found the case much less impressive than it has been made out to be.

“First, after being hospitalized for three days, Maria would have been quite familiar with the equipment monitoring her; so her perception of the printouts during her OBE may be nothing more than ‘a visual memory incorporated into the hallucinatory world that is often formed by a sensory-deprived and oxygen-starved brain’ (p. 31).

“Second, her perception of details concerning the area surrounding the emergency room entrance were of details that ‘common sense would dictate’--such as the fact that the doors opened inward, accommodating paramedics rushing in patients who need immediate attention (p. 31).

“Moreover, she was brought into the hospital through this very entrance--albeit at night, but the area was well-lit--and could've picked up details about it from normal sensory channels then (pp. 31-32). The fact that rushing ambulances would traverse a one-way driveway, too, is something anyone could infer from common sense.

“Finally, Maria's hospital room was just above the emergency room entrance for a full three days before she had her OBE, and ‘she could have [easily] gained some sense of the traffic flow from the sounds of the ambulances coming and going’ and from nighttime ‘reflections of vehicle lights’ even if she never left her bed (p. 32).

“But what of the most persuasive aspect of her report--her description of the celebrated shoe? How difficult would it have been for her to learn these details WITHOUT having left her body?

Ebbern and Mulligan set out to determine exactly that:

“’As part of our investigation, Ebbern and Mulligan visited Harborview Medical Center to determine for themselves just how difficult it would be to see, from outside the hospital, a shoe on one of its third-floor window ledges. They placed a running shoe of their own at the place Clark described and then went outside to observe what was visible from ground level. They were astonished at the ease with which they could see and identify the shoe.

“’Clark's claim that the shoe would have been invisible from ground level outside the hospital is all the more incredible because the investigators' viewpoint was considerably inferior to what Clark's would have been 17 years earlier. That is because, in 1994, there was new construction under way beneath the window in question and this forced Ebbern and Mulligan to view the shoe from a much greater distance than would have been necessary for Clark’ (p. 32).

“As the authors note, what was a construction area for them in 1994 was a high-traffic parking lot and recreation area back in 1977, providing an even better view of Maria's shoe than the one they saw so easily. Their 1994 'test shoe' was so conspicuous, in fact, that by the time they returned to the hospital one week later, ‘someone not specifically looking for it’ had noticed it and removed it (p. 32). It is quite likely, then, ‘that anyone who might have noticed the shoe back in 1977 would have commented on it because of the novelty of its location’ and Maria could have heard such a conversation and consciously forgotten about it, incorporating it into her out-of-body imagery (p. 32).

“Moreover, even if no one had seen it from the ground level, Ebbern and Mulligan tested Clark's claim that Maria's shoe was impossible to see from inside the room unless she pressed her face hard against the glass looking for it. This claim was found to be wanting:

“’They easily placed their running shoe on the ledge from inside one of the rooms and it was clearly visible from various points within the room. There was no need whatsoever for anyone to press his or her face against the glass to see the shoe. In fact, one needed only to take a few steps into the room to be able to see it clearly. To make matters worse for Clark's account, a patient would not even need to strain to see it from his or her bed in the room. So it is apparent that many people inside as well as outside the hospital would have had the opportunity to notice the now-famous shoe, making it even more likely that Maria could have overheard some mention of it’ (p. 32). The authors add that anyone who did press his or her face against the glass to get a closer look at the conspicuous shoe from inside the room could easily see the worn-out little toe and tucked shoelace: ‘[W]e had no difficulty seeing the shoe's allegedly hidden outer side’ (p. 32).

“They conclude:

“’[Maria's shoe] would have been visible, both inside and outside the hospital, to numerous people who could have come into contact with her. It also seems likely that some of them might have mentioned it within earshot.“

The “Mariah’s Shoe” story continues to encounter even more stubbed toes:

“’[Clark] did not publicly report the details of Maria's NDE until seven years after it occurred. It is quite possible that during this interval some parts of the story were forgotten and some details may have been interpolated. . . . [Moreover], we have no way of knowing what leading questions Maria may have been asked, or what Maria might have ‘recalled’ that did not fit and was dropped from the record’ (pp. 32-33).

“Furthermore, Clark's inaccurate account of how difficult the shoe was to see from both inside and out provides evidence that she subconsciously embellished significant details to bolster the apparently veridical nature of the case” (p. 33).

(”Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences,” by Keith Augustine, 2003, updated, 2008, original emphasis, at: http://infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html#maria)

Part 1, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363723#msg-1363723

Part 2, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363724#msg-1363724

Part 3. at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363726#msg-1363726

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Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2014 04:02AM by steve benson.

Part 3

--Closing Out the “Consciousness” Claim

While stubbornly defending the non-evidentiary notion that NDEs/OBEs as some kind of “non-physical” phenomenon, “JB” nonetheless “concede[d] that the brain is the actuator of the will of your character and conscience and the actuator of the soul.” (i.e., the “mind”)

How the natural brain-- as some kind of special instrument--supposedly actuates the supernatural “soul,” JB doesn’t bother to explain but that doesn’t keep JB from feeling “sorry” for those “choose to believe you don't have a soul.”

(“G.M. Woerlee Whacks NDEs I don't think so !!!,” by “Just Browsing,” on “Recovery vrom Mormonism” discussion board, 24 August 2014, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1361075,1362521#msg-1362521)


The fundamental problem with JB’s story of the brain-as-the-train station-to-the-soul claim is that that, in reality, consciousness is actuated by, and dependent on, the brain--and that when the brain dies, the mind ddieswith it.

As Keith Augustine explains in his article, “The Case Against Immortality”:

“Modern science demonstrates the dependence of consciousness on the brain, verifying that the mind must die with the body. . . .

“Barry Beyerstein points out that the view ‘that consciousness is inseparable from the functioning of individual brains remains the cornerstone of physiological psychology’ (Beyerstein, p. 44). . . .

“Beyerstein lists five main types of empirical evidence which support the dependence of consciousness on the brain.

“First, phylogenetic evidence refers to the evolutionary relationship between the complexity of the brain and a species' cognitive traits (Beyerstein, p. 45).

"Corliss Lamont sums up this evidence:

"‘We find that the greater the size of the brain and its cerebral cortex in relation to the animal body and the greater their complexity, the higher and more versatile the form of life' (Lamont, p. 63).

“Second, the developmental evidence for mind-brain dependence is that mental abilities emerge with the development of the brain; failure in brain development prevents mental development’ (Beyerstein, p. 45).

“Third, clinical evidence consists of cases of brain damage that result from accidents, toxins, diseases, and malnutrition that often result in irreversible losses of mental functioning (p. 45). If the mind could exist independently of the brain, why couldn't the mind compensate for lost faculties when brain cells die after brain damage? (p. 46).

“Fourth, the strongest empirical evidence for mind-brain dependence is derived from experiments in neuroscience. Mental states are correlated with brain states; electrical or chemical stimulation of the human brain invokes perceptions, memories, desires and other mental states (p. 45).

“Finally, the experiential evidence for mind-brain dependence consists of the effects of several different types of drugs which predictably affect mental states (p. 45).

“Memory is essential to self-identity. Electrical or chemical stimulation of the brain can prevent the formation of new memories and cause memory loss for events that occurred up to three years before such intervention (Stokes, p. 71). Neuroscientists have accumulated a considerable amount of evidence that long-term memory traces ‘are dependent upon, and perhaps consist of, changes in the strengths of synaptic connections among neurons’ (Stokes, p. 73).

"Lamont argues that because:

“’The proper functioning of memory . . . depends . . . on the associational patterns laid down as enduring structural imprints through means of inter-neuronic connections . . . [I]t is difficult beyond measure to understand how they could survive after the destruction of the living brain in which they had their original locus’ (Lamont, p. 76).

“Further experimental evidence for mind-brain dependence is derived from ‘split-brain’ patients who have undergone an operation that severs the corpus callosum to reduce epileptic seizures (Beyerstein, p. 45). The corpus callosum is a broad band of fibers that directly connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain. If information is only presented to one hemisphere of a ‘split-brain’ patient, the other hemisphere is unaware of it and is not capable of understanding the reactions of the informed hemisphere (p. 45).

“The result of ‘split-brain’ surgery is the formation of two mental systems, each with independent mental attributes (p. 45). A variety of psychological tests corroborate the existence of two streams of consciousness demonstrably unaware of the contents of the other (Parfit, p. 248). To give a humorous example, ‘one of the patients complained that sometimes, when he embraced his wife, his left hand pushed her away’ (Parfit, p. 249). Beyerstein asks: ‘If a 'free-floating' mind exists, why can't it maintain unity of consciousness by providing an information conduit between the disconnected hemispheres?’ (Beyerstein, p. 46).

“One of the strongest arguments for mind-brain dependence comes from the effects of ‘brain pacemakers’ which electrically stimulate the cerebellum in the brains of psychotics (Hooper and Teresi, p. 154).

"The following case illustrates these effects:

“’Another patient, a severely depressed former physicist, was troubled by voices that commanded him to choke his wife. When he got one of Dr. Heath's pacemakers in 1977, the infernal voices vanished, along with his perennial gloom. . . . But his wires eventually broke, and once again his wife was threatened with strangulation. When the gadgetry was mended, so was the man's psyche’ (Hooper and Teresi, p. 155).

“These are just a few examples from neuroscience of the dependence of consciousness on the brain. We know that altering the brain's chemistry can cause drastic personality changes. Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease are dramatic examples of mind-brain dependence. If you are thinking of suicide, don't go to a psychiatrist, go to a pharmacologist: A combination of an antidepressant and tryptophan should banish all thoughts of ending your life (Hooper and Teresi 171).

“Survival proponents who think that the brain is an instrument of the soul use arguments like the following in an attempt to reconcile physiology and the soul:

“’A colored glass . . . [has] only a transmissive function in respect to the light that shines through [it], since [it does not itself] create the rays. The same may be said of an organ, which transforms already existing air into music. In a similar fashion the human body may act as a transmission apparatus for the supernatural soul’ (Lamont, p. 98).

“Corliss Lamont makes it apparent that this rejoinder has no force:

“’A severe injury to the head, for instance, may change an ordinarily cheerful man into a sullen and morose one subject to sudden fits of homicidal mania. If the brain and body are simply the instruments of the soul, we have to say in such a case that this personality is really still brimming over with joy and benevolence, but that unfortunately these sentiments can only express themselves in dark glances, in peevish complaints and in violent attacks’ (Lamont, p. 100).

"Lamont continues:

“’Suppose . . . [he] becomes definitely insane . . .[and] is convinced he is Napoleon. . . . Are we to say that his real personality is still normal, that his soul is still thinking clearly and healthily and that as soon as he gets rid of his body by dying he will come to his senses?’ (p. 100).

“The illustrations of the ‘instrument theory’ reveal a fatal flaw:

“’If the human body corresponds to a colored glass, . . . then the living personality corresponds to the colored light that is the result of the glass . . . . Now, while light, in general, will continue to exist without the colored glass, . . . the specific red or blue or yellow rays that the glass produces . . . will certainly not persist if the glass [is] destroyed’ (Lamont, p. 104).

“The consequences of the instrument theory are absurd. Throughout aging, specific mental abilities may be irrevocably lost one-by-one:

“’Yet, if instead of the senses being destroyed separately and gradually by disease or accident, they are all simultaneously destroyed by death, the dualistic immortalist asks us to believe that they will go on in some other state with unimpaired, if not greatly improved, capabilities!’ (Lamont, p. 102).

“Paul Edwards asks: ‘How does the complete destruction of the brain bring about a cure that has so far totally eluded medical science?’ (Edwards, ‘Dependence,’ p. 296).

“Edwards argues that the instrument theory is inconsistent with Alzheimer's disease:

“’An Alzheimer patient's brain is severely damaged and most of his mind has disappeared. After his death his brain is not merely damaged but completely destroyed. It is surely logical to conclude that now his mind is also gone’ (p. 296).

“If under certain circumstances the mind cannot survive in life, how can it survive death? Edwards provides a clear illustration of the incompatibility of the instrument theory with the facts of Alzheimer's disease. Prior to her affliction with Alzheimer's, ‘Mrs. D’ was a considerate, compassionate person with a normal functioning mind.

"Yet:

“’At about the time when she could no longer recognize her daughter, she beat up [a] paralyzed lady on two or three occasions . . . . [The instrument theory] implies that throughout her affliction with Alzheimer's, Mrs. D.'s mind was intact. She recognized her daughter but had lost her ability to express this recognition. She had no wish to beat up an inoffensive paralyzed old woman. On the contrary, 'inside' she was the same considerate person as before the onset of the illness. It is simply that her brain disease prevented her from acting in accordance with her true emotions . . . . [T]hese are the implications of the theory that the mind survives the death of the brain and that the brain is only an instrument for communication. Surely these consequences are absurd’ (pp. 299-300).

“Other survival proponents concede the evidence for mind-brain dependence but try to avoid the implication of personal extinction at death.

“Douglas Stokes, for example, writes:

“’[T]he intimate dependency of one's personality on the state of the brain makes it appear unlikely that one's personality and memories could remain largely intact following the destruction of the brain. However, memories, feelings, behavioral dispositions, and other personality traits are probably not the aspects of the mind that should be identified with an unchanging self . . . . . It would seem that the self must be what Hart called the “I thinker,” that entity that thinks one's thoughts, senses one's sensations, feels one's feelings and remembers one's memories rather than being the thoughts, sensations, feelings, and memories themselves’ (Stokes, p. 76).

“Stokes' attempt to leave room for survival while acknowledging the strong and consistent evidence for mind-brain dependence is disingenuous.

“By accepting the implications of this evidence, Stokes has cut off the possibility of any form of PERSONAL survival (resurrection aside). Once an individual has been stripped of his memories, dispositions, mental skills and personality traits, nothing but a tabula rasa remains. Such a 'blank slate' could not be a vehicle of personal survival; the mind of a deceased individual would be reduced to something like the mind of an infant, only divorced from any means to perceive or interact with its environment.

“Most of us would regard the reduction of the mind of a productive adult to the mind of an infant while alive as a tragedy as great as that of death itself; thus the bare existence Stokes allows for the mind after death would hardly be better than extinction.

“In fact, it seems unintelligible to claim that a particular individual has 'survived' his death once all of his distinctive mental characteristics have been erased (a particularly poignant problem for the idea of reincarnation). The continued existence of an 'undifferentiated self' lacking the mental traits which uniquely characterize a particular individual does not constitute personal survival anymore than the continued existence of one's bones does.

“William Hasker takes a different approach. He, too, concedes the evidence for the dependence of consciousness on the brain:

“’Whereas dualism has been above all concerned to assert the INDEPENDENCE of mind from body, both scientific findings and everyday observation combine to show the mind's DEPENDENCE on bodily conditions. A partial listing of relevant data would include: the dependence of personality states on hormone balance, the genetic determination by DNA structure of mental attributes and defects, the effects of drugs on mental states, personality changes in persons who have undergone such operations as frontal leucotomy or temporal leucotomy . . . . [T]hese findings . . . taken as a body . . . demonstrate a profound and comprehensive dependence of the mental, emotional, and even the spiritual aspects of human personality on its biological basis in the human brain and nervous system’ (Hasker, p. 306).

“How does Hasker try to reconcile the evidence for mind-brain dependence with the survival hypothesis? His contention that ‘while originally produced by the brain and dependent upon it in many respects, the mind is nevertheless capable of continuing to exist and to function without the brain after the death of the body’ seems unintelligible (p. 307). As he himself asks, ‘If . . . the mind or soul is generated by the brain and is dependent on it in all the ways already emphasized, how can it fail to perish with the brain?’ (p. 307).

“Although Hasker never satisfactorily answers this question,
he does provide an analogy to try to explain his conclusion:

“’A black hole . . . is an incredibly intense gravitational field which is originally generated by a massive object but which, once it has formed, literally squeezes the object out of existence. Thus, according to Roger Penrose, “After the body has collapsed in, it is better to think of the black hole as a self-sustaining gravitational field in its own right. It has no further use for the body which originally built it!” Could the human mind, then, like the black hole, become a SLEF-SUSTAINING field of consciousness?’ (p. 308)

“What are we to make of this analogy? I am afraid that there are far too many dissimilarities between the mind and a black hole to draw any reliable conclusions about the mind-brain relationship.

“For example, a black hole is created when the collapsing star which generated it is destroyed. The brain, on the other hand, is not destroyed when the mind comes into existence.

“The black hole and the star which created it do not exist SIMULTANEOUSLY, unlike the mind and the brain. More poignantly, however, when the mind comes into existence, on this analogy, it should no longer need the brain ONCE IT IS CREATED--that is, even BEFORE the brain is destroyed.

“The black hole analogy, like that of a child which grew in the womb but no longer depends on the womb for sustenance after birth, is an example of generation without CONTINUING dependence. The mind-brain relationship, on the other hand, is an example of both the generation AND continuing dependence of the mind on the brain. This relationship is captured more closely by the analogy of the dependence of a magnetic field on a magnet; but since the magnetic field ceases to exist when the magnet is destroyed, it is not surprising that Hasker rejects the closer analogy in order to avoid its consequences.

“If the mind depends on the brain throughout life then, in all probability, it depends on the brain even as death approaches. The mere fact that the human organism may be approaching death is not going to suddenly transform the mind into an independent entity which no longer needs the brain to function.

“The dependence of mental states on the brain during life strongly implies that when the brain dies the mind dies with it, just as a non-duplicated computer program ceases to exist when the computer it runs on is completely destroyed. Thus the evidence for the CONTINUED dependence of consciousness on the brain provides strong evidential support for the extinction hypothesis.

“One last point to make about the implausibility of survival given our knowledge of our evolutionary heritage is that:
“It is patently absurd to expect that all the myriad specimens of all the myriad species of life from the beginning of evolution are to go on existing forever in another world. Yet, we are led into just such absurdities when we once start relying on the dualistic theory that man has an immortal soul . . .that can exist independently of the body (Lamont, p. 117).

“Neuroscientists agree that the facts cited above ARE, Indeed, facts. Furthermore, scientists outside of neuroscience do not dispute that cases demonstrating the dependence of consciousness on the brain are valid.

“On the other hand, ‘most scientists outside of the parapsychological field do not accept the existence of psychic phenomena’ (‘Parapsychology’). Even within parapsychology, we find few parapsychologists who believe that psi is indicative of survival of bodily death[. John Beloff states that:

“’It should not be thought . . . that all parapsychologists are necessarily committed to a dualist interpretation of the mind-body relationship. At the present time, especially, many exponents prefer to think of psi as essentially a function of the brain, or of some special brain mechanism or process ‘(Beloff, ‘Parapsychology,’ p. 586).

“In other words, even most parapsychologists accept the dependence of consciousness on the brain! This leaves the survival hypothesis in an awkward position since paranormal phenomena are the best source of evidence that survival proponents have to offer.

“Even if one is inclined to believe that paranormal phenomena are best explained in terms of survival, the existence of such phenomena is doubtful because ‘a century after the founding of the Society for Psychical Research, there is still a total lack of consensus regarding the actuality of any parapsychological phenomena’ (Beloff, ‘Parapsychology,’ p. 586).

‘This lack of consensus is due to the lack of evidence for psi [paranormal phenomena]:

“With the single exception of hypnosis, not even the existence of one of the phenomena originally classed as supernatural, or later as paranormal, has achieved general acceptance among the scientific community; not one demonstrable, or repeatable, paranormal effect has been discovered; not one characteristic or law has been found which turns up in all those experiments that claim a positive result (Scott, p. 579).

“I think I have presented a fairly accurate representation of the evidence on both sides of this issue, and in weighing that evidence the scales are clearly tipped in favor of extinction. . . . We should not allow our emotions to cloud our judgment.

As Corliss Lamont says:

“’We do not ask to be born; and we do not ask to die. But born we are and die we must. We come into existence and we pass out of existence. And in neither case does high-handed fate await our ratification of its decree.’ (Lamont, p. 278).

(Keith Augustine, “The Case Against Immortality,” original emphasis, at: http://infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/immortality.html)
_____


--Conclusion:

Here's the real sign above your operating room table:

No Shoe, No Soul, No Immortality Service

**********


Part 1, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363723#msg-1363723

Part 2, at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363724#msg-1363724

Part 3. at: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1363723,1363726#msg-1363726



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2014 03:57AM by steve benson.