Skeptiko
This podcast is a leading source for intelligent, hard-nosed skeptic vs. believer debate on science and spirituality. Each episode features lively discussion with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics.
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December 20th, 2011 Alex
Interview with Dr. Robert Kuhn reveals why he’s reluctant to accept evidence for near-death experience (NDE) science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Robert Kuhn, host of popular television show Closer to Truth. During the interview Kuhn discusses the evidence for survival of consciousness after death:
Alex Tsakiris: Let’s talk about survival of consciousness a little bit — life after death — and in particular near-death experience research. It’s a topic we’ve covered a lot on this show. If there’s consciousness with no brain, then the mind/body debate is really over. Why isn’t this an area you’ve dug into?
Dr. Robert Kuhn: That’s a legitimate question and obviously we’ve touched on it because we do deal with life after death in terms of the religious expressions of it. So that’s something I can focus on, because it’s not a question of physical fact as NDE would be, which I am very skeptical of.
Alex Tsakiris: Who would be someone you would point to as being an NDE skeptic?
Dr. Robert Kuhn: To me, the number of people would be legion. The burden of proof is on the other side.
Alex Tsakiris: The burden of proof of what? The NDE evidence is pretty clear. For example when they’ve studied this in the cardiac ward they know there’s no brain electrical activity and yet there’s this conscious NDE experience. I mean, that’s really the crux of the mind/body issue.
Dr. Robert Kuhn: I would find that not compelling at all if that’s the evidence.
Alex Tsakiris: What do you mean?
Dr. Robert Kuhn: I personally believe that there is more likely than not a need for something beyond the material world as we understand it today to explain consciousness and mind. I would not, though, use as evidence for that the existence of the NDE.
Closer to Truth Website
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Alex Tsakiris: Let’s talk about survival a little bit. Life after death. It’s a topic we’ve covered a lot on this show because the evidence for it really cuts to the core of this argument we’ve just been talking about. If there’s consciousness when there’s no brain, then it’s really debate over. And that, of course, brings…
Dr. Robert Kuhn: Well, I don’t necessarily agree with that but to be very rigorous in the analysis it does not follow that if there is more to consciousness than the brain, it does not follow that there has to be a guaranteed life after death. It can follow; it is not excluded, of course. It is a fact in that direction…
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November 22nd, 2011 Alex
Interview reveals how a near-death experience changed everything neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander thought he knew about consciousness, spirituality, and life after death.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander. During the interview Dr. Alexander discusses letting go of our simplistic view of consciousness:
Alex Tsakiris: Can we really then hope to get out of the consciousness loop that we’re in now? Or is there something fundamental to the way that we’re constructed that’s going to keep us limited in how much we can really?
Dr. Eben Alexander: What I think is going to happen is that science and spirituality, which will be mainly be an acknowledgement of the profound nature of our consciousness, will grow closer and closer together.
One thing that we will have to let go of is this kind of addiction to simplistic, primitive reductive materialism because there’s really no way that I can see a reductive materialist model coming remotely in the right ballpark to explain what we really know about consciousness now.
Coming from a neurosurgeon who, before my coma, thought I was quite certain how the brain and the mind interacted and it was clear to me that there were many things I could do or see done on my patients and it would eliminate consciousness. It was very clear in that realm that the brain gives you consciousness and everything else and when the brain dies there goes consciousness, soul, mind—it’s all gone. And it was clear.
Now, having been through my coma, I can tell you that’s exactly wrong and that in fact the mind and consciousness are independent of the brain. It’s very hard to explain that, certainly if you’re limiting yourself to that reductive materialist view.
Dr. Eben Alexander’s Website
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Today we welcome Dr. Eben Alexander to Skeptiko. Dr. Alexander has been an academic neurosurgeon for more than 25 years, including 15 years at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In November of 2008, he had a near-death experience that changed his life and caused him to rethink everything he thought he knew about the human brain and consciousness.
Dr. Alexander, welcome to Skeptiko.
Dr. Eben Alexander: Thank you. It’s good to be here.
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November 8th, 2011 Alex
Long-time NDE researchers and author P.M.H. Atwater reveals what she’s learned from the nearly 4,000 near-death experieners she’s studied.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with NDE researcher and author, P.M.H. Atwater. During the interview Atwater discusses the after-effects associated with NDEs:
Alex Tsakiris: Once we accept that near-death experience science overwhelmingly suggests that consciousness, in some way that we don’t understand, survives bodily death, I think you make a very good point about looking beyond NDEs at the broad range of spiritual experiences and trying to somehow understanding how they all fit together.
PMH Atwater: What I always look for is the pattern of after-effects, how that affects the individual’s life, how long-lasting is that, how that affects the lives of others. It’s always the after-effects.
I spend a lot of time in the book on after-effects, both with adults and children. On the physiological end, there are definitive changes to the brain/mind assembly, to the nervous system, to the digestive system, and skin sensitivity.
P.M.H. Atwater’s Website
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We’re joined today by NDE researcher and NDE experiencer, PMH Atwater. PMH, thanks for joining me today on Skeptiko.
PMH Atwater: It’s my privilege.
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June 21st, 2011 Alex
Investigative journalist and author Steve Volk seeks a middle-ground between mainstream science skepticism and researchers on the paranormal fringe.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Steve Volk, author of Fringe-ology. During the interview Mr. Volk discusses his personal experience with poltergeist phenomena:
Alex Tsakiris: In your book you do a very nice job of exploring the mystery of the paranormal. But at the same time, I look at the mystery associated with your experience with a ghost in your house. That is, what happened to you when you were a kid growing up and you experienced this poltergeist phenomena. At the end of the day, in the book you come away and say, “Well, it’s a mystery.”
Steve Volk: It is.
Alex Tsakiris: But that’s a tricky word because it could mean two things. It could appeal to that certain group of people who say, “Okay, we don’t know if it really happened. It’s a mystery.” Or another group of people could process it and say, “Oh, it’s a mystery. We don’t know the precise confluence of paranormal things that happened to cause it.” Are we using a word that doesn’t get us to the underlying question about this mystery?
Steve Volk: I think in the totality of that chapter with the fact that I explore the idea of it having been a traditional sort of ghost, along with a range of skeptical explanations from the fantasy-prone personality which is really purely a psychological one to what I consider the more exotic materialist theories like Vic Tandy’s theory of infrasound that there are these sound waves below the level of human hearing that can cause us to even have visual hallucinations, on through Persinger and the electromagnetic energy temporal lobe interaction that he’s been pursuing for a while now, there’s this range of potential explanations right?
I wanted to just put them all out on the table because I think that they all have some sort of validity. I think we need to be willing to consider all these possibilities. I suppose, in that respect Alex, I might appear a little bit of a gadfly at times because I’m challenging everyone to look at all the possibilities all the way on through.
Steve Volk’s Website
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Alex Tsakiris: We’re joined today by someone you’ve gotten to know over the last few episodes of Skeptiko as Steve Volk has been a guest host here and brought us three very informative, insightful interviews about the history of parapsychology, neuro-theology, and ghosts. Today Steve is here to talk about his new book, Fringe-ology, a book that covers all these topics and a lot more. Steve, welcome to Skeptiko.
Steve Volk: Alex, thank you so much for having me.
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June 7th, 2011 Alex
George Washington University Medical Center Professor, Dr. Lakhmir Chawla, answers critics of his near-death experience research.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Lakhmir Chawla. During the interview Dr. Chawla discussed whether his discovery of a surge in the brain’s electrical activity seconds before death might, or might not, be related to near-death experience:
Alex Tsakiris: A moment ago you referenced the discovery of the first black swan as reminder of how science has to be prepared for unexpected discoveries. Part of the frustration I hear from near-death experience researchers is, “hey, we keep finding all these black swans; where are the rest of you?” They keep finding cases where patients report a near-death experience during a time when there’s no brain activity — that’s a black swan. Then they look at your finding, which is interesting and surprising, but is quite speculative as far as being related to near-death experience and they say, “where’s the balance?”
Dr. Lakhmir Chawla: I think that’s a very important point. At the end of the day, if near-death experience is going to enter a very durable research area it has to answer some of these questions. Because right now we know that near-death experiences are very important to patients. So the stakeholders are very interested in it. So it will always have its relevant people who are very interested in it because it’s a big deal and it talks about the aspect of life when life potentially ends. What we’re suggesting in this paper is that we have an interesting finding at the time of death. It may have nothing to do with near-death experience, but the need to understand what this is or isn’t has a lot of value.
Now, I’ll tell you, the other important issue is that we have patients who we allow to pass away and then we take their organs. Currently we use EKG as the metric for when they’re dead. Some people have suggested that you should wait and see if they have this spike because that may, in fact, be the border. And this has real consequences for the quality of the organs that are taken from these patients if they’re allowed to sit for even a minute or two minutes longer. So, the implications are beyond the near-death experience.
Example of how Dr. Chawla’s finding was reported
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Alex Tsakiris: Today we welcome to Skeptiko Associate Professor of Medicine at George Washington University Medical Center, Dr. Lakhmir Chawla. Dr. Chawla, thank you so much for joining me today on Skeptiko.
Dr. Lakhmir Chawla: Delighted to be here.
Alex Tsakiris: So, Dr. Chawla, in 2009 you published a paper with the surprising discovery that some of your patients who were very close to death experienced a final surge in brain activity and the paper has gained quite a bit of traction, media attention, mainly because of this quote of yours:
“We think that near-death experiences could be caused by a surge of electrical energy as the brain runs out of oxygen.”
It‘s been a while since that paper was published. So first I want to ask you, do you still think that what you saw has anything to do with near-death experience?
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May 4th, 2011 alex
Journalist and author Hazel Courteney describes her spiritual awakening and the science it led her to.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Hazel Courteney, author of, Countdown to Coherence. During the interview Ms. Courteney discusses how we discern the authenticity of a spiritual awakening:
Alex Tsakiris: I don’t care if this guy who claims to have walked with Jesus in a former life said a lot of great things that resonated with your beliefs. He is not credible by the standards that you normally apply as a journalist. If you find a doctor, and you find him to be a quack, not credible, you don’t say, “Yeah, but he was right about these three other things.” You say, “He could have easily picked that up from some credible person.”
That is the only means we have of sifting through this tremendous amount of information that we’re flooded with, spiritual information, technical information, scientific information. We have to be the filter, and in particular we’re asking you, Hazel, to be our filter. I just don’t see where you’re really accepting that challenge.
Hazel Courteney: I go back to my statement that in every walk of life you have to discern what people’s motives are for doing what they do, whether it be spiritual or otherwise. I always say to spiritual people, “If you want to be with people that are like you and want to grow spiritually, obviously you join spiritual groups. Some of them resonate with you and others don’t. If you don’t like the way people are acting or behaving, then you move away until you find a group that you resonate with.”
But that goes true in all walks of life. I mean, I find it very frustrating that you’re asking me to give definitive ways of discerning. We’re in the middle of a process here. We’re in the middle of a huge leap forward in consciousness and so there will always be people who say all the stuff we’ve talking about is absolute nonsense. And there will be those who might be a bit more open-minded. But at the end of the day, everybody has the choice to make up their own mind. I’m not asking anyone to hand their power to anyone.
Hazel Courteney’s website
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Today we welcome journalist and author, Hazel Courteney, to Skeptiko. Since 1998, Hazel has been on a spiritual journey visiting and reporting on scientists, researchers, gurus, and spiritual teachers of all sorts. She’s chronicled her adventures in her books, including her latest, Countdown to Coherence. Hazel, welcome and thank you for joining me today on Skeptiko.
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March 25th, 2011 alex
Noted DMT researcher Dr. Richard Strassman describes how DMT allows consciousness to enter an out-of-body, freestanding, independent realm of existence.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Rick Strassman, author of, DMT – The Spirit Molecule. As a researcher at the University of New Mexico Dr. Strassman received approval to inject volunteers with a psychedelic drug called DMT and evaluate the effects. According to Strassman, “the most interesting results were that high doses of DMT seemed to allow the consciousness of our volunteers to enter an out-of-body, freestanding, independent realm of existence, inhabited by beings of light who oftentimes were expecting the volunteers and with whom the volunteers interacted.”
During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Strassman discuss whether DMT-based psychedelic experiences provide evidence that our consciousness exists outside of the brain:
Alex Tsakiris: Virtually all of the near-death experience researchers, come to the conclusion sooner or later that consciousness must exist outside of the brain. How do we process that?
Dr. Richard Strassman: Well, it isn’t a new idea. Obviously spiritual traditions have believed it and taught it and have practiced it. It is a new idea within the Western scientific model, so one of the analogies that I make in the DMT book is the brain is a receiver as opposed to a generator of a particular channel of consciousness, Channel Normal, as it were.
Under extreme situations then the channel switches and as a result of being given DMT is the brain is now able to perceive channels of information that it couldn’t before. If you change your perspective on the relationship between the brain and consciousness then things start to become a bit clearer, but at the same time have been more mind-boggling, too.
Dr. Richard Strassman’s website
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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
Today we welcome Dr. Rick Strassman, author of DMT – The Spirit Molecule, a fascinating book about his research with a psychedelic drug that causes some amazing out-of-body spiritual experiences. Here’s my interview with Rick:
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February 25th, 2011 alex
The author of, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, discusses why NDE evidence doesn’t measure up.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with philosophy of science and human consciousness scholar, Dr. James Fetzer. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Fetzer discuss evidence for the survival of consciousness, and whether this evidence undermines our current model of mind=brain consciousness:
Alex Tsakiris: So let’s take a big step back and say that when someone has a flat EEG they are not supposed to have any conscious experience, let alone the kind of conscious experience near-death experiencers are reporting. What you say might be definitionally true and all that, but we just have to deal with the fact that people are having a conscious experience when they shouldn’t be having it. And that’s highly suggestive that consciousness doesn’t operate the way that we thought. It isn’t a product of the brain but is somehow separate from the brain and continues after the brain is severely compromised, if you want me to say it isn’t dead.
Dr. James Fetzer: Well, as soon as you begin talking about an ordinary concept of consciousness you have to acknowledge that consciousness involves responses to stimuli in the environment that we access through our different senses, taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. Therefore, if we’re going to talk seriously about a form of consciousness that persists after death, we’re going to have to account for how it’s possible to have sensory experiences for an entity that is no longer embodied. In other words, if you no longer have your senses, if you no longer have a capacity for taste, touch, sight, smell, or hearing, how can you possibly have any conscious experiences after you’re dead?
What we do know, Alex, is that when the brain is deprived of oxygen, the kinds of experiences that are typified by the reports of those who have these near-death experiences occur.
Alex Tsakiris: That’s absolutely not true, Jim. You just haven’t delved into the.
Dr. James Fetzer: Alex, that’s all just fine and dandy and I did not previously express any concerns about it. You have been pressing me on this point and I’m explaining to you that based on classic criteria from the philosophy of science, your proposition of the survival of consciousness after death is a paradigm case of an empirically untestable claim.
Dr. James Fetzer’s website
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Welcome to Skeptiko where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
On this episode of Skeptiko we return to a topic that I’ve addressed many times before, and that is near-death experience science and how it squares with the mainstream science model of consciousness. That is, of course, that consciousness is solely and completely a product of the brain. Now I’ve wrestled this issue to the ground before, but it was really fun to dialogue with someone who I greatly respect and admire for his ability to courageously follow the data wherever it goes on a whole variety of topics that are certainly very, very controversial.
Here’s my interview with Dr. Jim Fetzer:
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February 10th, 2011 alex
The author of, Sum: 40 Tales From the Afterlife, discusses his work as a neuroscientist and author.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Baylor College of Medicine Neuroscientist and author, Dr. David Eagleman. During the interview Dr. Eagleman discusses why survival of consciousness and near death experience (NDE) research isn’t a prominent topic among neuroscientists, “I think it should be front and center. I mean, my impression is that scientists have different personalities and some are quite conservative and they like to stick with the party line. Now, I should specify that what the party line is at this moment in history is reductionism or materialism, which means you are just built out of your pieces and parts and that’s it. When those pieces and parts break and go away, then you go away. That’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis and may well be right. I’m not criticizing that hypothesis, but I am saying that there are other possibilities, as well.”
Eagleman continues, “I go all around and give talks to my colleagues at universities all around, and what I see in some universities in some places is you’re not even allowed to talk outside of that paradigm. Anything that gets said is really pooh-poohed. So I really admire these guys who are looking for the paradigm-busters.”
Dr. David Eagleman’s website
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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
On this episode of Skeptiko, I have an interview with someone I’ve been trying to get on Skeptiko for a couple of years. Dr. David Eagleman, as you’ll learn, is a neuroscientist from the Baylor College of Medicine who wrote a book a couple of years ago all about the afterlife, but the book was a novel. The book got quite a bit of publicity. I actually heard about him first on NPR, the National Public Radio here in the U.S. The book became a best-seller and he went on to do all sorts of amazing stuff.
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January 19th, 2011 alex
Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris and atheist blogger Greta Christina square-off for a debate on near Death Experience (NDE) science.
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview discussing the existence of the soul and the science of Near Death Experience. During the interview Tsakiris points out the lack of research among NDE skeptics, “And really, if we’re going to play the kind of credential game, you really wouldn’t want to stack Dr. Bruce Greyson, Dr. Jeff Long, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, one of the most highly regarded cardiologists in the world who’s been studying near-death experience for 30 years-you wouldn’t want to stack them against Keith Augustine, who really doesn’t have any kind of medical credentials. So I’m talking to you about published research in these cases.”
Ms. Christina responds, “There is what seems to me to be extremely shaky research and there’s no consensus about it in any sense-in fact, the overwhelming consensus among neurologists is that no, these people are, I’m not going to say crackpots, that’s too strong a word. But these people are mistaken. They’re being led down the garden path by their wishful thinking. And again, when you look at the history of thousands and thousands and thousands of years of human knowledge, where supernatural explanations consistently get replaced with natural ones and it’s ultimately when the research has been really done and it’s been really examined, it’s never been the case that it’s happened the other way around.”
Near the end of the debate, Ms. Christina sums up her argument “…even if I conceded everything that you’ve said in this whole conversation, all that it proves is that consciousness is weird and that we don’t understand it. That’s all that it proves. It doesn’t prove anything about there being an immaterial soul that animates consciousness. It doesn’t prove anything about immaterial soul surviving death.”
Tsakiris responds, “I don’t mind hearing your opinion, but you’ve got to back it up. You’re saying that every time somebody gives you research you go and look at it and it’s debunked. Well, tell me. Tell me what’s been debunked. You haven’t cited any real NDE research. You cited Keith Augustine and then you want to say Skeptical Inquirer and Skeptical Magazine?”
Greata’s Blog Post: Why Near Death Experiences Are a Terrible Argument for the Soul
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Welcome to Skeptiko, where we explore controversial science with leading researchers, thinkers, and their critics. I’m your host, Alex Tsakiris.
For a while on this show I’ve maintained that there really isn’t a good, solid, scientific argument against near-death experience science. If you’ve followed this show and you’ve listened to the guests that we’ve had on, people like Dr. Jeffrey Long, Dr. Pim Van Lommel, Dr. Peter Fenwick, Dr. Bruce Greyson (who we haven’t actually interviewed but who has contributed by email), if you stack them up against the skeptics we’ve talked to, Dr. G. M. Woerlee, Dr. Kevin Nelson, Dr. Susan Blackmore, Dr. Steven Novella, or even Dr. Sam Parnia (who’s kind of in the middle of this issue but we really have to put on the side of the skeptic) if you stack up the two arguments there’s really no comparison.
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