Experiences, Near-Death Experiences . . . Shaken, Not Stirred

I was reading an article posted by The Guardian entitled “The New Science of Death” with the subtitle “New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thought.”

It was the subtitle that drew my attention. Most readers will read into it that something they always thought to be the case is being found by science, whereas I read into it that “than previously thought” was based upon almost no factual evidence, so our thinking has been flawed all along, rather than the science.

Most people assume dying occurs like a light switch functions: on and off. You are alive and then: Boom! you are dead. Unless some barbarian has chopped off your head, normal dying I suggest is a process that takes time. Because it takes time, our brain continues to function. Which gives us experiences, near-death experiences.

The surprising thing is that people think their NDEs as they are called are “real experiences.” To me, they are no more real than dreams. I do not actively try to remember my dreams, but I did keep a dream log alongside my bed for a few months, so I do recall some of my dreams. One involved me taking flight on the walk home from my high school. Initially my flights were very low altitude, but I did make it up above the trees at one point. In another, I learned to fly airplanes and managed to acquire a old beat up plane and fly it around (without anyone noticing it!). So, were these real experiences? Hardly. If anything in a dream appears to have been a real experience, it is probably because it incorporates a memory of a real experience of yours.

So, if dreams do not represent real experiences, why would anybody expect NDEs to represent “real” occurrences, e.g. “I went to Heaven and talked to Jesus. And then he sent me back! It was so real!”

A clever nurse placed a placard on top of a cabinet in an operating room, clearly visible from above but not at all from below. She queried all of those people who reported a near-death experience about a written sign and none saw what she had placed up there, which was unmistakable if viewed from above. So, what about the NDE of viewing themselves on the operating table from above? Gosh, do you think it could be imagination? Is it possible they had heard of such a thing before? Could the people who saw a “bright light” or “Jesus” expect to see such things? Since religious interpretations seem to be taught to people by the religion of the parents indoctrinating their children, this is a much simpler answer than “God did it, it is a miracle.”

So, what happens when we die? (This is of interest as I am more than a little long of tooth.) Here is what the authors of this piece stated:

“In a medical setting, “clinical death” is said to occur at the moment the heart stops pumping blood, and the pulse stops. This is widely known as cardiac arrest. (It is different from a heart attack, in which there is a blockage in a heart that’s still pumping.) Loss of oxygen to the brain and other organs generally follows within seconds or minutes, although the complete cessation of activity in the heart and brain – which is often called “flatlining” or, in the case of the latter, “brain death” – may not occur for many minutes or even hours.”

Brain death may not occur for many minutes or even hours. So, the brain keeps chugging along, doing what brains do when we are unconscious . . . dreams, maybe, because they are so practiced. They point out that “It is no longer unheard of for people to be revived even six hours after being declared clinically dead.”

The thing I object to is the pandering to the supernatural crowd. The full title of this piece was “The New Science of Death: ‘There’s Something Happening in the Brain that Makes No Sense.’ (emphasis mine)”

Gosh, what do you think happens when you study a new phenomenon? (Death isn’t new, placing dying people under brain scanners is.) Initially, you do not have all of the data, not even close to enough data to make out a clear interpretation, so “it doesn’t make sense” is the normal state during something new and promising being studied. Think of a jigsaw puzzle as an example. If three pieces were to be in their correct positions, could you figure out what the picture is? Let’s see, the blue could be sky . . . or water . . . or sky reflecting off of water, or a fancy gown, . . . so, no. How about when eleven pieces have been placed? Still no. But over time as pieces are placed parts of the image become known: “Look, it is boat!” And you need a goodly number of placed pieces to winkle out the true image. And pieces placed incorrectly muddy the waters. This is the way science progresses. Those convinced of their interpretation will look at the first placed piece of the puzzle and say “See, I told you,” or when a researcher expresses puzzlement, they pounce, too, but they are not doing anything by thinking wishfully.

I Wonder How Many Died Because of Trump’s Recommendation

Early estimates of in-hospital deaths related to hydroxychloroquine treatment for COVID-19 now available. Researchers from France and Canada have estimated there were 16,990 hydroxychloroquine-related deaths during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in six countries for which relevant data were available: Belgium, Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, and the USA. [Pradelle A and others. Deaths induced by compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first COVID-19 wave: An estimate. Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, 171:116055, Feb 2024] The estimate is based on a calculation that considered: (a) cohort study data to provide estimates of mortality rates and the proportion of hydroxychloroquine exposure; (b) hospitalization data from each country; and (c) data from a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials indicating 11% greater odds of COVID-19 patients dying when given hydroxychloroquine. The researchers also noted that hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria and autoimmune rheumatic diseases, was used off-label early in the pandemic to treat COVID-19 despite only low-level clinical evidence of benefit. Studies have since documented an unfavorable risk-benefit balance, especially due to increased heart-related mortality. (Source: National Council Against Health Fraud Archive)

And I repeat: “. . . a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials indicating 11% greater odds of COVID-19 patients dying when given hydroxychloroquine.”

Donald Trump is still recommending this treatment, no? I guess there is no fraud too small that he won’t engage in it, even when he isn’t making any money (directly) from it. His motivation is apparently to undermine the “guvmint,” using this as evidence that “you can’t trust the guvmint.”

And one cannot but notice that Trump only got the finest treatment for the disease that can be had (paid for by government insurance) and didn’t take his own nostrums (hydroxychloroquine or bleach).

How The Hell Would They Know?

Recently a Texas woman and her husband received bad news regarding her third pregnancy. Doctors told Kate Cox and her husband, “There is virtually no chance that their baby would survive to birth or long afterwards.” Apparently, continuing the pregnancy would cause a grave risk to Cox’s life and would probably jeopardize her chance of having future children. According to this, they made an appeal to a court to receive an exception to Texas’s abortion law. That court, having no special medical expertise and recognizing that the situation checked all of the boxes required for an exception (which was written in the law in plain English and was rather broad), deferred to the doctor’s expertise and approved the exception.

Of course, being Texas, an objection was made and the case shuttled to the state’s Supreme Court, which overturned the decision of the lower court and denied the exception.

In all of this, did anyone ask “How the Hell would they know?” How would judges with no medical expertise make such decisions? Surely they can parse laws and evaluate evidence, but here the conditions for an exception were plainly met, but denied. Why?

They clearly cannot be using their religious backgrounds, Texas being Christian country, because there is no support for their decision in the Bible, and if their churches have a policy covering abortion, there is no support in scripture for such policies.

What motivation, other than raw misogyny, could these judges on their Supreme Court have? It was pointed out that the judges and the state’s Attorney General are very conservative. What conservative ideology is there to support such an action, with no evidence to the contrary? The courts didn’t order an examination of the woman by one of “their” doctors, nor did they demand an examination of the case file by one of “their” doctors. They just decided.

Damned wimmen; always makin’ trouble!

How the Hell would they know anything but their own prejudices?

Scum Sucking Big Pharma Companies

In a post on the federal government now negotiating prices on a list of drugs for Medicare patients, the author gave away too much in stating that the drug companies spend billions in developing their drugs and they deserve a return.

What she didn’t mention is that much of the basic research is paid for by the U.S. taxpayers, that is you and me. The drug companies take that publicly funded research and run with it, not paying a penny for that information.

In addition, drug companies are now looking at their drugs that are near the end of their patents and making minor and generally insignificant changes in the drug’s formulation and applying for a new patent so they don’t lose any money to the inevitable “generic” versions that will hit the market as soon at their patent expires.

Predatory pricing is clearly a common feature of many of these companies as their public pricing histories now show. And, of course, blatant fraud (Hello, Sackler family!) is still ongoing. Makers of abused prescription drugs used their clout with Congress to block FDA efforts to curtail the wholesale “prescribing” of abusable drugs out the backdoors of pharmacies. One FDA investigation showed a pharmacy in Florida had filled more prescriptions than there were people living in the county it resided in. And Congress actually passed a law forbidding the FDA/FBI from investigating those events.

Can you spell corruption, boys and girls?

Who Was That Masked Man?

Just two days ago, I stopped wearing a mask casually. I will still if I attend a meeting or other gathering of strangers, but just normal day-to-day stuff . . . no mas, no mask.

There is a website dedicated to providing tracking statistics for COVID in my city. From a peak of 100 deaths per day, it is now at less than one half of a death per day (actually less than one death every two days because you can’t have fractions of a death). That is nice to know but basically I stopped casual wearing of a mask because I do not want to live a fear-based life. But then, if I end up in the hospital with COVID I may reconsider this stance.

Near Death Experiences

The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins? (Edgar Allen Poe)

I was viewing a documentary on near death experiences (NDEs) but turned it off fairly quickly. The same mistakes are made over and over and are used to prove the existence of a god or a soul or some other religious nonsense.

It is clear that most people think that life and death are opposite states. One can be one or the other, not both. And many dying scenarios seem very abrupt, so the transition seems to be, if not instantaneous, surely very very quick.

The truth was known to Poe, as indicated by his quotation above. Dying is a process. It can be relatively quick (We would all like that, as long as it is also painless.) or it can take many, many minutes to occur.

So, researchers have discovered brain waves in people dying and presumed already dead. This is an interesting finding, but too many grasp on these results as an indication of life after death. May I point out that people can go on breathing and responding to stimuli long after they are dead meat. Remember Terri Schiavo?

It is a process, and therefore can be stretched out, as in poor Ms. Schiavo’s case, for months.

And shall we say at this point “it is complicated.” We still do not know much about the process as there are taboos, you see, stupid taboos (I guess all taboos are stupid). We do not have a reliable method of determining that someone has died other than waiting and looking for the inevitable decomposition. Studies are needed, but those should not involve jumping to conclusions. For example, if brain waves are observed after a presumed death, the questions need to be things like what are the source of those waves, was the patient really dead? What do those brain waves signify? (An electrochemical death rattle? What?), and so on.

Republicans Take Up Their Cross, Crucifixions Hopefully Ahead

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, on Friday ordered a hold on federal approval of mifepristone in a decision that overruled decades of scientific approval.

The FDA first approved Mifeprex (mifepristone) in September 2000 for medical termination of pregnancy through seven weeks gestation and this was extended to ten weeks gestation in 2016.

So, how does a federal court judge have the power to overrule a decision of a department of the federal government? Unless the ruling is unconstitutional, the court doesn’t even have a say. Can you spell separation of powers boys and girls?

This is the Donald Trump Effect, in my opinion. The approach is just simple: lie through your teeth, then claim you have the power to enforce the lie.

How can a “hold” be placed upon an approval made 22+ years ago? Is that not a done deal? Republicans have indeed gone mad and are carrying ideological crosses around with them. Let us assist them in their desires, help nail them on and then prop up those crosses, so they can achieve their aims. Just vote “No to R” and all of this idiocy goes away.

Hoo Boy!

Hoo boy, did I screw up. I recently posted the top ten drugs advertised on TV and then went on a diatribe about patent drug names. Well, I just found another list for the same year are here it is:
dupilumab
semaglutide
adalimumab
upadacitinib
semaglutide
dulaglutide
empagliflozin
risankizumab-rzaa
brexpiprazole
guselkumab

Here’s is my list (I couldn’t expect you’d remember it.):
dupixent
rybelsus
humira
rinvoq
ozempic
trulicity
jardiance
skyrizi
rexulti
and tremfya

See any similarities between the two lists? Well, there are quite a few, because this is the same list. The first list, however, listed the drugs by their brand names, rather than their patent drug names. Brand names are copyrighted rather than patented, but the effect is the same. If you look at the two lists you will see names that are almost equally incoherent, so my point still stands. Plus, these patented drug names, which the brand names are riffs upon, are just as unpronounceable. How do you pronounce rzaa, for example, and not sound like a Monty Python-esque impression of an archaic British military officer?

Interestingly, the same medicines are sold under multiple brand names, for example semaglutide is sold under the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus. Can I get a side of confusion with that, please?

And, looking at these lists, either one or both, can you tell what the hell they are for? How about dupilumab? According to Wikipedia dupilumab, sold under the brand name Dupixent, is a monoclonal antibody blocking interleukin-4 and interleukin-13, used for allergic diseases such as eczema, asthma and nasal polyps which result in chronic sinusitis. It is also used for the treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis and prurigo nodularis.

Maybe we also need English translations for diseases such as eosinophilic esophagitis and prurigo nodularis. There is much work to be done.

Psychedelics: Forgotten Cornerstones of Civilization?

I am a big fan of Benjamin Cain who writes on Medium.com and elsewhere. His latest post has the title above (without the question mark). Here is a taste:

“Even setting aside the wildest speculations about the meaning of the peak states of consciousness you undergo while you’re high on psychoactive drugs such as DMT, magic mushrooms, peyote, or even cannabis, the mundane interpretations of them are still revolutionary. That is, even if we assume — as we should — that you’re only hallucinating when you’re tripping or that you’re engaging with your unconscious mind rather than with God, angels, or extraterrestrial races, the implications still rewrite practically everything we take for granted about history, religion, elitist social divisions, and politics.” Benjamin Cain

Mr. Cain goes on to say: “This is to say that our forgetfulness is almost as dazzling as the peak states themselves. The yin of the majestic creativity that bursts from the high mind that’s liberated from social restrictions complements the yang of the dulled, domesticated mind that mistakes the valley for the mountain peak.”

Such discussions leave me largely untouched. It is not that I would never try psychedelic drugs, I have, but that the claims for their benefits are largely speculative. I haven’t read anything about microdosing yet, so maybe that is where their true value lies.

I do nor dispute that psychedelic drugs produce an “altered” state of consciousness, but why describe these as “peak” states? This smacks of the claims for the supernatural. Something is claimed to be not natural, but it isn’t referred to as subnatural or pseudonatural, it is supernatural, thus implying that it is superior to the natural or at a minimum “above” natural. So, altered states of consciousness are “peak states” of consciousness? Why not “valley states” or “plains states”? Again, a bias is built into the terms.

And, as to “unleashing creativity” or “unlocking creativity” (“the majestic creativity that bursts from the high mind that’s liberated from social restrictions”), I wonder. The experience could result in the creation of works different from what was being created by the user before, but are dull, uncreative people suddenly turned into fabulous creative people? I doubt it. I think creative people manifest their experiences through their creations. Creators create. Give them an altered state of consciousness and they will create some things they might not have before.

But have there been engineers or scientists who experienced such states and then gone on to invent or discover things never thought of before? If so, there haven’t been a lot of stories told about these experiences because surely I would have heard of some. (Kekule’s dream hint at the structure of the benzene molecules being the only one that comes to mind.)

Now, claiming that such altered states of consciousness allow people to get closer to the numinous, to a god, are also hogwash as the reports show that the gods “encountered” or hinted at are the same gods the users were indoctrinated to believe in, that is their “altered” experiences were not accepted as they were but were shaped to conform to the god blueprints the users carried in their heads before.

I remember seeing a Deepak Chopra video way back when, when he was “new and fascinating.” Mr. Chopra started talking as if he were a scientist and within ten minutes he shifted to discussing “chakras.” I turned the video off. Clearly he was repackaging his childhood religious teachings.

I think psychedelics played a role in any number of religions. I will grant that their effects could open up the users to new lines of thought. Beyond that, the claims are just that: claims. Of course, our repressed culture doesn’t sponsor much research into such things so it is likely that it will be a long time before we have much concrete data to discuss.

I Am So Tired of the Confusion of Gender and Sex

The Latin roots of confusion are basically to “melt together.” And its meaning of “to mix things that should be kept separate” dates back 500 years or so. Sex and gender are quite different and should be kept separate.

I got interested in this topic when investigating competitive categories in my sport, archery. I would read things like “the competitive categories are separated by gender,” and I would think, surely that is not right. It isn’t, they are separated by sex, but our prudish society avoids the word sex, especially around youths, as it evokes thoughts of coitus.

The word sex refers to biological sex of which there are two. People arguing that there are more than two are blowing smoke. Where it gets confusing is in the messiness of nature. Human beings are usually born as female with XX sex chromosomes or males with XY sex chromosomes, but there is a tiny fraction (0.018%, maybe, not counting those created via diseases) of births where there is a mix-up. People are born with three sex chromosomes, XXY, for example. I remember one case in which a person had two distinctly different DNAs depending on where the sample was drawn from. Apparently, she had starting out to be twins, but the two zygotes fused together early on. Strange things can happen when the occurrence of something like births is very frequent and ongoing.

None of this information was available to use culturally when we made up the terms for our language to refer to men and women, boys and girls, etc. We only had simple observations. We are 95+% a species of two sexes, which we call male and female. People who want different pronouns to be used because they do not “identify” with either sex are confused. They are confused by what we call gender.

If you compare any physical, mental, or social parameter of men and women, you will get two Bell curves which overlap substantially. Let’s take height as an example. In the U.S. the average heights are 5 feet 4 inches (163 centimeters) for women and 5 feet 9 inches (175 centimeters) for men. But if you have ever seen a WNBA basketball game, you are aware that many of the players are women who are taller than the average man. The Bell curve distributions for height of the two sexes overlap substantially. There are men shorter than the average height of a women and women taller than the average height of the men. But, on average, men are taller than women. Too many people equate this to “men are taller than women” which isn’t true and can cause social problems.

Now, the two sexes, men and women, also display what we call genders. Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. For example, we train little boys to not cry and that pink is not pretty. We teach little girls that wearing dresses is important and the color of pink is pretty. (Pink was not always a “girlie” color. Gainsborough was famous for a painting called “Blue Boy,” showing a boy dressed in blue finery, but also painted a similar boy in pink finery (called, of course, “Pink Boy”).

So, in the two sex categories, we have always had effeminate men, that is men who displayed the social characteristics of women, e.g. comedian Eddie Izzard (a favorite of mine) and women who displayed the social characteristics of men, e.g. actress Katherine Hepburn (also a personal favorite).

At the other end of those two spectra we have “macho men,” men addicted to excessive displays of “manliness,” and “wilting flowers” women who display outsized gender characteristics. We tend not to notice these two categories much as they are conforming to society’s gender characteristics. The people who stand out are men who act like women and women who act like men.

There seems to be an effort ongoing now to characterize a number of gender categories, to which I say “Why?” I think this stems from people who have been ostracized for their lack of fidelity to how society says it wants men and women to act wanting to belong and not feel that they are alone. So, having such a gender category says two things: these folks are not unique and are recognized.

But having dozens of different genders makes a Holy Ned of a mess of our society. For example, back when I was a classroom teacher I typically had three or four lab sections of 20-25 students joined together for a single lecture section, which meant I could have 70-100 students sitting in each lecture class session. I struggled mightily in learning their names (the first sign of respect in a student-teacher relationship). If each of those students were to have their own set of pronouns that they preferred, I would have been overwhelmed. There was no way I could remember those. (Realize that every four and a half months, the group was replaced by another group of different students and the process would start over.)

I think a better solution would be to just accept people for who they are. If Butch wants to wear dresses to class, it shouldn’t be worth even a comment.

If Butch wants be referred to as “she,” however, well Butch is confusing me with someone who cares. Butch should maybe try his friends. They might agree to do that. I prefer to spend my efforts on things that really matter.

Postscript BTW, you cannot get an operation to change your gender. Sports categories are determined by sex, not gender, and the critical factor is whether you had your trans-sex operation before or after puberty. If the operation was after puberty, you would still have the frame and musculature of your original sex and should not be allowed to compete against athletes in your new sex, as it is largely cosmetic.

I suspect that the fireworks will begin now, but then not that many people read this blog, so maybe I am thinking to much of myself.