From: gpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Help
Date: 13 Nov 92 16:31:38 GMT
Organization: DSC Communications Corp, Plano, TX

In article <BxMFuz.4uq@acsu.buffalo.edu> v22964qs@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Mike Cluff) writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.192506.26872@samba.oit.unc.edu>, Mic.Oettinger@launchpad.unc.edu (Mic Oettinger) writes...
>[other points already well-rebutted removed]
>
>>I am aware that your wonderful
>>scientists have now discovered a way to tap the area of the brain that
>>triggers out-of-body experiences, and that they now in fact have a laboratory
>>where one (with much money to blow) can experience an OOB. 
>
>I suspect that this is urban legend, but I'll bite for a second...
>
>>Given that
>>after coming back from one of these the person can relay information which
>>occured in other rooms/states/countries/etc while they were 'gone', what
>>do you make of this obvious proof that the human body entails more than
>>its physical being? How would you explain this, and does this not provide
>>a damn good proof that when we die we are only leaving our physical body?
>
>Actually, if this were true, it would be remarkable evidence that the 
>OOB experiences are not mystical.  If one could poke a part of the brain and
>have it trigger an OOB, that's pretty good evidence that OOB experiences 
>are physically based, wouldn't you think?  After all, one brain surgeon (forgot
>his name) would poke (actually, stimulate it with an electrode) people's
>cortexes and ask them what they experienced. Some heard sounds or perceived
>visual objects, depending on where the cortex was poked.  
>
>Are you really prepared to say that if one of these people heard a fire engine
>when their cortex was poked that there was actually a fire engine there? 
>
>******************************************************************************
>Mike Cluff				*  "If something about the human	
>v22964qs@ubvms or mike%luick@ubvms	*   body disgusts you, complain to
>UB Language Perception Laboratory	*   the manufacturer." - Lenny Bruce	
>******************************************************************************

Poking the brain to cause an OOB would not prove that OOBs are physical,
only that they can be induced by a physical stimulus.  If you stimulate
in the right way the extra-physical part of the human being departs. The
extreme case is death.  Poke a bird's nest and the bird will fly out of
it.  It does not prove that the bird is the product of the nest.

Just because a surgeon can invoke a psychosomatically induced illusion
by poking the brain does not mean that therefore all other such perceptions
are similar.  

The embarassing problem with OOBs is that the subject experiences things
that are evidentially confirmable.  E.g. going to another part of the
building or across town and reporting details they could not possibly
could have known about.  These are not religious or new age cranks who
report this, but respectable scientifically trained observers.  The
only way to decide is to really look at the accounts, and there are many
of them.  Skeptics are always looking for independently verifiable 
evidence.  Well, there is some, so don't spend your time trying to argue
apriori why the experiences and accounts thereof can't possibly valid. That
is dogma, not science.

Gerry Palo (73237.2006@compuserve.com)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism