X-Message-Number: 16756
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: NDE and Morevek simulations
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 21:45:27 -0700

In message #16743 mention was made of the NDE (near death experience) and my
name.

The recent news story was a rehash of older already well established issues
on this subject.

Melvin Morse, M.D. conducted a very careful study at Children's Hospital in
Seattle in the 1980s.  (For journal articles see the bibliographies in any
of Morse's popular books on the subject).

He studied 26 children who were heart attack survivors and compared these
cases to 176 seriously ill children who had not experienced clinical death.
These two groups were matched for age, sex, medications and anesthetics
involved.  Both groups had experienced oxygen deprivation to the brain as
documented through blood testing and both groups exhibited the same
fundamental blood chemistry.

There are nine specific experiential elements common to NDEs and almost all
of the 26 children who died reported at least one of these.  None of the 176
"control" patients reported any of these elements.

Dr Morse concluded that expectation of death and oxygen deprivation to the
brain is not sufficient to produce the elements common to the NDE.  He also
concluded that the NDE elements cannot be caused by fantasy or hallucination
via confabulation in response to resusitation since, again, the 176 children
who did not die had none of these but almost all of the 26 children who died
experienced one or more of the NDE elements.

Curiously this ground breaking study seems to remain studiously ignored yet
simple enough to be reproduced without having to do anything more taxing
than comparing charts and adding numbers.

Dr. Morse then went on to conduct an extensive psychological study to
determine what were any possible side effects to the personality due to the
NDE and, to gloss over a richly rewarding effort, he discovered that
individuals who have NDEs experience radical and long lasting personality
change.  With the exception of close interpersonal relationships which often
tend to suffer from the non-NDE partner's perspective, the resulting changes
seem otherwise exceedingly healthy and positive overall.

What does this mean?

I have come to assume that it means the following:

(1) NDE is not an hallucination nor fantasy.
(2) NDE transforms the personality.

If Hans Moravek is correct in his suggestion (Mind Children) that this world
may very well be a simulation and that statistically the chances are
overwhelming that it probably is, THEN...

(1) A simulation would tend to probably break down when any of its defining
parameters would be approached or exceeded, such as personal physical death.
(2) The purpose of the simulation might be to discover it to be so (thus
"winning the game").
(3) If the simulation is a puzzle to be solved or game to be won, there may
be "clues" given to assist in this purpose and these would most probably
take the form of anomolous events, exceptions to the normal "rules" of
things (laws of physics).

The following are a few events which are (now) common and fit that criteria:

(1) NDEs.
(2) Dreams in general and lucid dreaming in particular.
(3) Any so-called paranormal experiences to include so-called "alien
adbuctions", UFO sightings, ghosts, out of body experiences, etc.

What has any of this to do with cryonics?

First, we seek to restore those currently judged to be "dead" to life again.

But what do we know about the reported experiences of those who today have
"died" and been restored to life?

(1) They either report nothing at all, or up to nine elements of experience
considered part of the NDE.
(2) Those who report the NDE undergo radical and long lasting personality
change.

I have suggested earlier in this forum that as most NDE experiences are
clocked in minutes, it might be quite interesting to learn what the
experiences, if any, of those who have been cryonically suspended for years,
decades or even centuries, will be.

It would seem that those who have reported NDEs lay claim to cumulative
subjective experience.  Though this is highly debated, I would not be very
surprised to discover that the experiences of someone "dead" for, say, ten
years might be far more profound and transformative than those of someone
dead for ten minutes.

The really wonderful thing about choosing cryonics as an option is that
these and other fascinating questions may have definitive answers in the
future.  Will the first fully restored cryonaut report nothing, or decades
of NDE?  Or something else entirely?

I hope to be there to see it and find out.

I hope you will be there too.

George Smith
CI member

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