[davedes]

Quote by: Jack Look at your first sentence. You say yourself that the "evidence concerning the link between consciousness and the brain is very scarce". That's not the fault of scientists. A lack of credible evidence, according to peers within that community of psychologists, tells me that either we don't yet have the means or sufficient evidence (that can be reproduced) to reach a conclusion, or that the evidence that has been produced is literally incredible.

When I say "the link between the consciousness and the brain" I do not just mean the concept of consciousness surviving, but I also refer to the concept of it dying. I mean to say that evidence is scarce on "both sides" of the argument.

I would agree that this is due to incredibility and the current capabilities. But I do think that both issues will be resolved in the near future. It was once acceptable to call parapsychology a field of dishonest pseudoscientists, but things have since changed. Parapsychology is much more focused on "proving" this in the most credible, reproducible and scientific terms possible.

The topic of OBEs and NDEs are relatively new in the field of parapsychology, so they have received some of the least attention, and the evidence is still scarce in comparison. This is why I am reluctant to continue here, as it does not truly relate to this subject (feel free to split, I'm sure "psi" and psychic ability would produce an interesting debate on its own). But I'll continue anyways...

The claims made in parapsychology are difficult to investigate and skepticism is often discouraged while "acceptance prior to validating the evidence" is justified.

Today's community of academic parapsychologists are not like this. This looks like a blatant stereotype, and if you do wish to promote it I'd at least like some supporting evidence to justify your own claim.

I'm a skeptic. My cultural and psychological outlook defaults to disbelief with a fairly high standard for belief (when it comes to philosophical musings that identify themselves as being outside the framework of the reality I know and live in. "Para"psychology, "Meta"physics, theology; I understand and have done my share of exploring and getting carried away now and then. It never lasts. I am a skeptic-junky, or as Zappa would say, my bull**** detector is one of my primary senses. I'm in a "Show Me" state of mind. If my gaydar worked half as well as my bull**** detector I'd be a happy man.

I hope my posts aren't giving off the wrong impression. I'm a skeptic as well, although not to the same extent that you seem to be.

I do not subscribe to the notion of NDE afterlife and I'm waiting for much more evidence before even accepting veridical OBEs. I remain skeptical of "psi" ability although I will admit that there is a substantial amount of testable and credible evidence. Whether this evidence is accurate is another matter. However, I do not reject these concepts outright (that I would consider unhealthy skepticism).

When I first heard the claim that people can leave their body to view objects outside of their sensory perception, I was extremely skeptical. However, I was provided with steps and practices that would allow me to "leave" my body (which alone sounded interesting enough) and I was encouraged to verify the experience for myself. Take, for example, the supposed Playing Card Experiment. Sounds interesting? I'm definitely not yet convinced, but I still have yet to go out-of-body. (OBEs are still a very new subject to me)

So don't try and blame me for being unconvinced. I'm unconvinced, as are apparently many psychologists who peer review these concepts. Your job is to convince us. Offer compelling evidence, don't blame your audience for disbelief. You can't earn my belief with pallor tricks. I know about magic, and the power of the mind. I've never been successfully hypnotized. I naturally distrust initially. When I decide the evidence is sufficiently strong to earn my trust, my belief, then they get it. You can't just claim credibility for something that has a testable premise. The conclusions of the tests will either defer credibility or expose the paucity or complete lack of testable evidence. And based on my own experiences, I have far more reason to be skeptical than believing.

I do not blame you for being unconvinced. Sorry if it came off like that. I was completely unconvinced at first, and in many respects I still am (as I outlined above).

Again, as I said earlier, this is less focused on OBEs and NDEs as I currently have yet to find extremely compelling scientific evidence to support veridical experiences and/or afterlife experiences (and as such I am very skeptical to both those claims).

Below I'll provide you with some interesting papers on psi -- mainly on the topics of ESP, telepathy and psychokinesis. Although I have read through some of them, I have not read all of them. These papers would do nothing to convince me, personally, but since you do ask for scientific evidence, I will comply.

Lengthy Publications:
An Assessment of the Evidence for Psychic Functioning (1995)
Does Psi Exist? (1994)
Observation of a psychokinetic effect under highly controlled conditions (1993)
The Persistent Paradox of Psychic Phenomena: An Engineering Perspective (1982)
Precognitive Remote Perception: Replication of Remote Viewing (1996)
Assessing the Evidence for Mind-Matter Interaction Effects (2006)
ESP and the Brain: Current Status
Various PEAR publications
Various psi-related publications

Further reading:
Cognitive Sciences Laboratory
Parapsychological Association
The Rhine Research Center
The RetroPsychoKinesis Project
Dean Radin - Entangled Minds

For lighter reading, here is an interesting article on the history of psychokinesis. It's by no means "scientific," unlike the above.
http://www.parascope.com/articles/0397/pkindex.htm

Note: Controlled psi experiments are done on an extremely small scale. No moving of tables, no fluent reading of minds, no teleportation to other rooms. The most common experiments deal with the mind's influence on randon number generators.

Something perhaps more convincing than text on paper is actually experiencing the phenomenon first-hand. Imagine if you verified your own OBE, not just once but so many times that the statistical results pointed well away from mere coincidence. Of course, there is also a possibility that the statistics will not point at anything meaningful, and if that's the case you'd just be left with numerous memories of profoundly interesting lucid-dream-like experiences (which I don't see as a terribly bad thing).

I am not here to convince you. I am not the "believer" as you seem to assume I am. I am in the same boat as you -- the difference is that I make an attempt to either verify or falsify these claims through (a) independent research and (b) first-hand experimentation. If you truly wish to be convinced, you will need to put a bit of effort into it.

I'm exhausted.. g'night!