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Comment on Can a reasonable person genuinely believe in ghosts?

WolfLink@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Near death experiences are a tricky thing to study. There are physiological explanations for much of it, such as weird brain activity is likely to be interpreted as a weird experience.

These people would have no way of having knowing this stuff unless they’ve seen it for themselves, which would have been physically impossible.

The problem of this argument is confirmation bias. An anecdote of seeing information you couldn’t have seen and being right is going to be more memorable than seeing information and being wrong.

when you have several hundred of them compiled back-to-back-to-back it becomes harder and harder to find the willpower required to muster up a skeptical response

Nah I think statistics can very very easily explain several hundred apparent out-of-body near-death-experiences out of the millions or billions of people who would have had a chance to experience near-death over recent history.

I did some googling of my own and found some studies on the topic from seemingly reputable sources that suggested physiological explanations might not be sufficient to explain the patterns they saw. Several of these had the same first author. I also found plenty of studies suggesting physiological explanations can be sufficient, as well as some specific criticisms of the couple studies that suggested they weren’t sufficient.

It’s interesting for sure that there is a doctor or two who seem to believe in the supernatural. The topic of near death experience seems to be of research interest regardless of any supernatural theories because of what it tells us about the brain.

It seems we will likely arrive at scientific consensus about near death experience in the future. I wouldn’t hold my breath that supernatural theories will survive that process.

events that transpired when they had no brain activity.

I think I saw the case this was talking about during my googling. It said “no suspected brain activity” which is not the same as confirmation of “no brain activity”.

That’s the problem with a book like the one you are describing. It’s deliberately cherry picked, exaggerated, and biased to drive you to a certain conclusion.

I instead urge you to go read scientific papers on the topic, and specifically not just the ones that seem to suggest the outcome you want to hear.

Here’s a place to start.

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ageedizzle@piefed.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Thanks for your response. If you and I agree on anything it’s that we should do more science to understand this stuff better.

The scientific method involves looking at both the cases where it seems like something happened and the cases where nothing happened (e.g. someone said they had an experience but it clearly didn’t match reality). If you cherry pick just the events that “showed” what you want, that’s confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is real, but this isn’t it. If I believe that all swans are white , and then I come across a black swan, should I just dismiss that data point because it would confirmation bias (perhaps people would accuse me of wanting this outcome)? No. Ignoring the black swan isn’t the way to go here. It wouldn’t be ridding ourselves of confirmation bias, it would be ridding ourselves of critical data that contradicts our starting hypothesis.

Similarly: even if supernatural stuff that is hard to explain happens in only a percentage of cases, discarding that data isn’t ridding ourselves of confirmation bias; it’s simply choosing to ignore critical data. That’s not good science.

I instead urge you to go read scientific papers on the topic, and specifically not just the ones that seem to suggest the outcome you want to hear.

This is what I started with, so for the longest time I was very skeptical, just like most people in this thread. It is my belief that anyone with an open mind who takes in all the information on this topic (including the studies that suggest supernatural outcomes and those that don’t; the first-hand accounts and the skeptical rebuttals) will inevitably come to the same conclusion that I have. That was my experience, anyway. This is not a conclusion I was looking for; I was really stubbornly against this stuff for the longest time, but I was forced to change my mind.

It’s also worth noting that the book talks about more than just near-death experiences; I just used them as an example.

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- WolfLink@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Confirmation bias is when the outcome could be adequately explained by luck.
  
  In the topic of near death experiences, if there are 1,000,000 near death experiences and 100 involve someone “knowing something they shouldn’t be able to”, those 100 cases are more likely to be remembered or recorded as significant than the other 900,000 cases. This can lead to an apparent statistical significance in correctly knowing “unknowable” information, when really it’s just people “guessing” correctly.
  
  The “black swan” scenario is a bit different but it would be something like if you are more likely to record a swan sighting if the swan is black, you will significantly overestimate the frequency of black swans.
  
  Im not saying the cases of apparent supernatural effects should be ignored, I’m saying they need to be taken in the context of all similar events, including the mundane, to understand if there even is an effect (knowing something that shouldn’t be possible) or if it’s just a handful of lucky guesses.
  
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  - ageedizzle@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    
    In the topic of near death experiences, if there are 1,000,000 near death experiences and 100 involve someone “knowing something they shouldn’t be able to”, those 100 cases are more likely to be remembered or recorded as significant than the other 900,000 cases
    
    These are nowhere near the real numbers. No one could realistically conduct a study on near death experiences that included 1,000,000 participants
    
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    WolfLink@sh.itjust.works ⁨43⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    That’s a rough estimate of mine on how many near death experiences might have happened, studied or not, and that’s why it’s such a problem to only focus on the anecdotal cases that get recorded because they are interesting.
    
    A proper study doesn’t need to include 1,000,000 cases, but it does need to ensure that it doesn’t have bias in the cases it does include.
    
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