 This skeptical where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers thinkers and their critics I'm your host Alex the Karris and during the many years. I've done this show. I've never had someone ask to come on and Straighten me out about something. I got wrong on previous interview with them or in this case with their co-author But that's exactly what we're going to do today Dr. John Martin Fisher a distinguished professor of philosophy at University of California Riverside Which is right up the road for me is here to talk about a couple of books that he's written One that we featured in the previous episode of skeptico near death Experiences understanding visions of the afterlife and another one it which is more recent death immortality and meaning of life John welcome to skeptico. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you, Alex I appreciate the invitation and let me just clarify that one reason I wanted to come on the show was that when you had tried to reach me before I was actually ill and away from my office for some months and that's why I did not get your Messages, but it was entirely my fault and it seemed a very rude. I'm sure but I Apologize and I'm happy to have the opportunity now Well, I'm more than happy to give you that opportunity and yeah I did reach out to you initially, but I wonder I thought one way we could bring people up to speed is I did have a Very good interview. I thought with your co-author Someone who was a research fellow working under the underneath you Dr. Ben Mitchell Yellen and I thought one way to kind of kick this thing off is To play a clip from that previous interview that we did and I'll go ahead and play that clip for the audience Right now. Okay We can start there. I have to say when I play that clip It's actually more generous to you guys even than I would be if I was kind of doing it again, but Tell us tell us why you felt like you needed to come back on and Kind of set the record straight. Okay. Well first again, I appreciate that opportunity There were a couple of things that I picked up from that quotation or that Little excerpt one was the point that All of the other near-death researchers Perhaps serious academic Researchers have not come to the same conclusion that we did you were wondering why and secondly the introduction to the chapter In which we were talking about near-death experiences in the blind. First of all as you know when we're doing thoughtful Analysis and reflection. We don't just count on the number of people who are on one side or another You know, you can find a lot of people on every side of any interesting controversial issue Secondly, there are quite a number of researchers Serious academic researchers some of which we supported in the immortality project Who take a different perspective not necessarily a supernaturalist so for instance one of our Researchers whom we supported with Sam Parnia whom you mentioned and I'm a very good friend of Sam's we're in constant Correspondence in contact. I respect his work very much. We also supported Shahar RZ in Israel Who does not take a supernaturalist approach, but he's a very thoughtful scientist We also supported Mel Slater and his wife Marias Sanchez Eva who are part of an ongoing research project in Spain using immersive virtual reality and they've Done some interesting simulations of near-death experiences using immersive virtual reality and they've studied it None of those as far as I know has come to a supernatural conclusion There's of course the work of Oliver Sacks. There's the work of Kevin Nelson an MD and a neuroscientist at University of Kentucky who offers interesting physical explanations in terms of the brain so There are a lot of people who don't really are John when you break down even your list there You can start with Nelson. We've covered his research extensively on this show because Dr. Jeffrey Long who We're gonna talk about in a minute. Yeah actually gave his data to Nelson to do the work and Jeffrey Long kind of does a complete breakdown of how Ram intrusions which is Nelson's conclusion is completely kind of ridiculous Hold on Sam Parni who you mentioned comes to a conclusion that And like you say the supernatural kind of explanation which we can get into a minute I don't I don't know that these people are saying supernatural what I hear them saying is that by our normal understanding of Neurology the current neurological model Consciousness seems to be surviving death in a way that we don't understand and they say that repeatedly and as far as people Stacking up on different sides of a debate. That's not what's going on here What's going on here are researchers who are open-minded Lee Analyzing trying to understand doing research into a phenomenon and then coming to a conclusion at the end That is supported by their data. So this isn't a You know Republican Democrat pro against it's just researchers doing research and all the researchers come to one conclusion And then you write a book that suggests that's not true at all Susan Blackmore did not come to that conclusion Kevin Nelson doesn't come to that conclusion what you said was Jeffrey Long has Analyzed Kevin Nelson and allegedly refuted him. That's not to say that Kevin Nelson came to a supernatural conclusion secondly How many researchers it's interesting it's a very small number of scientists who do study NDE's and that's partly because Until recently it's been totally dismissed by the scientific community part of my work as you know is To try and say people who have reported NDE's are serious honest Sincere people by and large not everyone we know the stories of Alex malarkey and others But almost all of them are serious sincere people I believe them and we need to study them and study them carefully So I believe more study should be done, but As it is now you can pretty much count the serious academic studies on one or two hands Simply not true. You know, I mean, it's I head on Janice Holden who along with Bruce Grayson published the Right the handbook now Let me let me interrupt you which references 200 and a growing number of peer-reviewed near-death experience research papers And one of the things I thought we would do today is kind of talk about this research because your your book is Incredibly research light it doesn't reference the research and even today when you talk about Oliver sacks He never did any research in a near-death experience discusses in his book hallucinations He never did any research. Just what do you mean? I don't know so in other words I couldn't do research on the on slavery in the u.s. Unless I talked to slaves. Is that it? I can't do any research on on Any phenomena in history unless I've actually talked to them I have of course talked to people who've had near-death experiences and I've read the thousands as you know They're a diamond doesn't there are thousands online that you can read and they've all gone to heaven and talked to Jesus And they've come back all go are they for they've ridden on butterfly wings or they've blah blah blah fill in the blank I've read hundreds probably thousands of those reports now I Don't again. I don't think we want to go into Accounting match. I will say that Janice Holman who's the editor of the journal of near-death studies Sponsored by Iance with whom you're very familiar with the International Association of Near-death Studies I also consider her a friend. We've Corresponded regularly and she was kind enough and gracious enough to do a book symposium on our book and Ben wrote a reply essay and she was very professional She's indicated informally that she plans to do something on my new book as well So also the reason I first Got interested in near-death experiences was I was on a panel with Bruce Grayson a Panel in which we discussed ongoing research on immortality with the Templeton Foundation on the basis of that panel discussion. I've kept in touch with Bruce. I Respect his work greatly So I don't just dismiss these people. I know them They refer to a lot of stuff 200 even if there were 200 papers on near-death experiences, I Would say that's a tiny. That's like the grain of sand at the beautiful beach there at Del Mar where you live Compared to the number of scientific studies. We'd expect on any serious phenomenon Yeah, okay. Let me play a couple of clips, okay? You kind of oh may I before I'm sorry to interrupt But you played something about that our discussion of the blind We introduced that chapter simply by saying We have to be skeptical about what people say you're a skeptic and that's important. I'm not a skeptic Well, you are a skeptic about science and you're Your book is Extensively Trust me go ahead. So dr. Long Let me probe a little bit further about the types of near-death experience research that's out there because over the years I've interviewed a lot of near-death experience researchers and for example, you know just the other day I Interviewed this guy nice enough guy University of California. He's doing his postdoctoral fellowship He's part of a team. They receive four million dollars and foundation to study near-death experiences So I speak to him about his research Turns out he didn't really do any original research He didn't go into a hospital into a cardiac arrest ward and talk to patients there He didn't as you did develop a hundred and fifty medical survey and give it to hundreds of near-death experience researchers Yet he published his results. We talked about his book He concluded that near-death experiences aren't real in the way that we're talking about They don't suggest that consciousness seems to survive bodily death So I guess the question is for the average person who's trying to sort through this idea of near-death experience science research How do they sort through it? How do they know what research really holds up out there? The key thing is to know a few of the Consistently seen elements of near-death experience that are the strongest evidence for their reality for example When you're under general anesthesia, it should be impossible to have elucidic organized Remembrance at that time. In fact under anesthesia. You're typically so far under with general anesthesia They often have to breathe for you. I mean you're literally brain shut down to the level of the brain stem And at that point in time some people have a cardiac arrest their heart stops And of course, that's a very well documented They monitor people very carefully that are having general anesthesia So I have dozens and dozens of near-death experiences that occurred under general anesthesia And at this time it should be if you will doubly impossible to have a conscious remembrance And yet they do have near-death experiences at this time and they're typical near-death experiences They have the same elements and a period of have them in the same order as near-death Experiences occurring under all other circumstances and in fact a critical survey question I asked was what their level of consciousness and alertness during the experience was well even under general Anesthetics under those powerful chemicals to produce sedation if they had a near-death experience under general anesthesia Their level of consciousness and alertness was identical to near-death experiences occurring under all other circumstances There's absolutely no way the skeptics can explain that away It's impossible that in and of itself is some of the strongest single line of evidence that near-death experiences have to be Independent of brain functioning. There's simply no way you can be under general anesthesia and have a highly lucid organized experience like that And especially one that's consistently seen throughout near-death experience research So that's probably the strongest line of evidence we have that the physical brain as we know it simply cannot produce the near-death experience Okay, there's a Radiation oncologist full-time medical doctor talking about medicine. I mean, what's the response? The response is that we don't know exactly when the near-death experience the phenomenology or the experiential content occurs two problems one I think I probably emphasize less our Mechanisms for detecting brain activity are still fairly crude. They're not very sophisticated Neurosciences in its infancy or maybe it's toddler stage But we don't really have the tools to be sure when the brain function is suitable and when it's not more importantly consider on a dream people report dreams with Content that spans a long period of time But when did they actually have the brain activity that underwrites the dream typically when they're ramping up when the brain is ramping up after being asleep after being Not wakefully conscious the brain ramps up and the individual wakes up And we can do the studies that show that the that the brain activity is plausibly Underwriting the dream in the last 20 seconds before the individual wakes up But let me just say this I respect dr. Long as you know My book with Ben and I've done the two books but my book with Ben Mitchell-Yanlon Very carefully and thoroughly analyzes the book that Jeffrey Long wrote Evidence of the afterlife so if people are interested in a careful reflective analysis of dr. Long's results That's a good place to look He is an oncologist, but he's not an oncologist He is not a philosopher and these are not purely medical questions. These are questions about what we can infer From medical questions What do they mean and as such a doctor although as you know most doctors think of themselves as gods a Doctor is not the best person to consult about the philosophical meaning of what the patients say So that's the bet the bet the bottom line is dr. Long and no one knows exactly when the individual was having this experience It might seem like it was over a long period Yeah, John John you just you just and I went over this with Ben. I sent you that I said Please go back and listen to the interview with Ben because you guys just aren't up to speed on the research I'll play you another clip. Here's the best research that directly addresses that This is from chapter three your book when exactly did near-death experiences take place? Here's dr. Penny Sartori had her on the show important research. I'll play you the clip and my view. It's not important research You know, there's so many ways to break down this topic of near-death experience And as we're just talking about in this book that you've written it's it's very inspirational and That's terrific. I mean there's a lot to there's a lot to be inspired about and there's a lot of Culture change that needs to go around this but the scientific angle and that's what I always thought was terrific about this research is As you know, there's been this ongoing debate. Well, you it's it's not scientific They're just these anecdotal accounts and besides you could never study this Scientifically and I always like to point people to your research and I say no here's really a wonderfully simple experiment that was done That one both adds incredible Scientific evidence suggesting the reality of near-death experiences But also shows us a path how you can you can apply science to this can can you just go over in in broad strokes the Study that you did about people's recollection of their Resuscitation and how the one control how the control group was set up and how that was basically done Okay, so what I did was over the the period of five years I interviewed for the first year I interviewed every single patient who survived their admission to the intensive care unit and I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss any patients And what I found at the end of the first year was that I was actually spending longer in the hospital than I was at home So I couldn't sustain that for the following five four years So what I thought what I did then is I narrowed down the kind of the group I was interviewing so I only approached patients who had undergone cardiac arrest and survived and Although the sample was a little smaller than the first year What I found is that in 30 out of 39 patients who had been successfully resuscitated Seven of them recalled a near-death experience And that's you know, there's nearly 18% of patients who survived cardiac arrest had this kind of experience And what I also did is I documented their blood results at the time I looked at the drugs that were given and I also interviewed the the staff members who were looking after the patients So the nurses and the doctors I asked them if one of the patient if the patients reported the out-of-body component I would then try and verify what it was. They wrote what they described and I would I Verified that with the the nurses and the doctors who were looking after them with the control group I had then patients who had been successfully resuscitated, but they didn't have a near-death experience So they didn't have the out-of-body component and I asked them if they could describe what they thought that we had done to them and And they were like, what do you mean? I don't I was dead. I don't remember anything, right? Exactly, that's right. And they were saying why are you asking me this? I have no idea what you did to me at all I and The majority of them couldn't even guess they couldn't make a guess as to what we'd done And then a few of them then did make a guess and it was based on TV Hospital dramas that they've been watching and what I found is that there were errors and Misconceptions in what they thought we had done to them And so some of them thought that they had been DC shocked with the paddles and they hadn't those people had just had the resuscitation the CPR and drugs administered such as adrenaline or noradrenaline and Then some of them made educated guesses But the place where they thought that we put the paddles onto their body was completely erroneous It was wrong. It was incorrect. It just goes to show that the people who did Report the near-death experience Describe their experience with it with accuracy whereas the control group weren't Accurate and they most of them couldn't even hazard a guess So John to me, this is near-death experience research. What Dr. Long is doing is near-death experience research You mentioned the timing thing doesn't this address the timing thing with real research? Somebody in a hospital someone working with people who've had a near-death experience. Well, Alex first I apologize, but I really couldn't hear couldn't understand what she was saying in terms of the quality of the audio Can you just in a couple sentences summarize what she was saying? Good. Thank you for the summary. I Admire Dr. Sartori any Sartori I've read her recent book one thing I want to commend about her as she points out that One of the important features of near-death experiences is that they show something important about end-of-life care About a more humane way of treating people at the end of life her own perhaps Basis on which she makes that argument might be a little different from mine But I do find it a very insightful point a point that I myself want to develop further. I know she's very sincere I don't know that it's a double-blind Project that was overseen by anyone else. I know that she has very strong Antisedent views about these matters And I think confirmation bias plays an important role when you have antecedent views Well, you would have to establish that you would have to one. How can you not even know of this research? I Know I've studied this look Is it there is did it have oversight or did it not have oversight? No, not that I've seen and let me say this It would be impossible of course to have read every study. That's referred to as you say There there are a lot of things out there in the internet and popular books. I've read I've read Quite a number of books by I believe her research did have oversight by Dr. Peter Fennec Who was a colleague of hers and as you know, Dr. Sam Parnia was also a colleague of hers They were all doing this partner. Dr. Parnia has an ongoing study called aware of which I'm sure you are aware and We supported it the immortality project gave him $250,000. He's a good friend as of now in my view and I think you would share this He does not have a single case where someone Saw one of the monitors that he places in hospital rooms and identified the number and He has pointed out that he had to make his study very very carefully double-blinded Because when he was first doing the study in Southampton, the nurses actually prompted the paid patients Terror management and confirmation biases so powerful that the nurses wanted the patients to tell Dr. Parnia the right answer so they gave it you don't you don't you're just kind of Take the conclusions of I've had him on the show. So I'm glad you've talked to I've talked to him, too I'd have I've had him on the show multiple times and the first time he was kind of very much in this in-between Zone of whether or not he thought that his dead it was suggestive of consciousness surviving death Since then maybe you know he has come out and his conclusion is that based on all the research that he's done He is of the opinion that his research is highly suggestive that consciousness survives death So don't spin Parnia as saying something different and as far as I'm just reporting that he does not have a single case Detailed Pointed out where can I look at one single example where Sam whom I respect is a great scientist Has found someone who cannot see a computer monitor in their room and they are unconscious and they identify the number That's randomly put tell me where I can find it If you think he's such a great researcher and you respect him then why don't you respect his conclusion? I do multi-year of a multi-year study in which he concludes what I just said so the Methodological issues in terms of seeing a particular thing placed in a particular area when someone's outside of their body has all sorts of Details to it that we've explored on this show But it's not up to you to decide that that is the sole criteria again that researchers Conclusion is based on all his research because he does research similar to what dr. Sartori is doing in terms of asking people to Very important his conclusion at the end of the day is that Well, he is a thoughtful scientist, but as you know You emphasize in your work that science doesn't even address the most important things in life matter of fact you have a book that's called science is wrong about everything and or something like that and I Think the point is that scientists and doctors only go so far then we're all all human beings have the right to analyze and reflect on those Studies that they do and on their conclusions now if Sam with whom I respect says some of his data Suggest or even strongly suggest that consciousness survives Failure to function of the brain the death of the brain. I respect that what he's saying is that's the suggestion There's no proof there There's no and so we can agree to disagree. I'm sure that that I Disagree that the data strongly suggest that let me say one of the people that Sam and various of the other supernaturalists invoke Apparently wanting the authority of a contemporary philosopher of mind is David Chalmers David Chalmers is Invoked by Tim Van Maal and a whole host of others and Yet David Chalmers does not believe that consciousness survives death. He's a duelist, but not a substance duelist He's a property duelist. He does not believe that consciousness survives death So there are a lot of philosophical conclusions that are made by MDs and Those philosophical conclusions people can reasonably disagree with I don't think so, but hey, that's why we have this show Here's another clip from doc, you know, what you don't think that we can disagree with scientist conclusions about Metaphysical matters. I thought you thought that science Doesn't even deal with the most important questions and that that they're wrong about everything just about Yeah, we can get into that but I don't need to talk about my own book I will just mention you are you're making claims about my research. Well, okay, I'm happy to talk about it I just didn't want to waste our time my point. So you think we should agree with every I Mean the scientists disagree obviously so The premise of why science is wrong about almost everything and it does get to the heart of the problem I have with your work is that if science doesn't understand consciousness if science can't get consciousness, right? Then science can't get anything right because we will always come back to the how many angels fit on the head of If you have cancer, who are you gonna turn to? No, wait a sign doesn't science have something to say about illness and how to treat it and I isn't that the best bet I think that the that we're mixing the philosophical and the Someone in your family had a serious disease. Would you go to a Fataler or someone who will read your palm or will you but I thought you said science gets everything wrong If they can't get consciousness, right? I think I said almost but I think we're getting off track I'd go back that that's the title of the book why science is wrong about almost everything so you can snicker But that's what it said back to Jeff Long. So see if you can turn up the volume so you can hear this one It's it. I'm trying because it directly addresses your research Okay, and I'm gonna push that a little bit further because here's where I was trying to lead you really because This has come up over and over again with me Jeff. I'm not making this up. You know it because you see it out there I mean, here's a book with all these academic credentials and you dig into it and they never Spoke with someone who actually had a near-death experience. I Had this happen over and over again I can think of three or four in the last year where I interviewed him and I just want to I just want to scream I go, how is this near-death experience research? There's no people who had a near-death experience That you know that is an amazingly good point It is astounding to me too that we have people that publish right books right scholarly papers About near-death experience that have literally never talked to someone who had a near-death experience That is some of the most bizarre Research I can possibly imagine it makes no sense to me And I'm sure everybody that you sees this video is gonna think gosh How is that even possible? How can somebody claim that they're doing near-death experience research and never ever even talk to someone who had a near-death experience? Well, the answer is you can't if you're going to investigate near-death experiences You have to talk to the near-death Experiencers and you have to understand what happened during the near-death experience. Okay. I I did hear that. Thank you I better turn my volume down though now because you'll come come in very lovely I Respect dr. Long as I mentioned much of the book that Ben and I wrote looks carefully at the logic behind his Conclusions like I say these are not medical matters purely these are about the metaphysical conclusions that you reach and What we argued respectively Respectfully was that his logic is bad and I would absolutely love to come on this program or any other program and have a friendly Serious discussion with dr. Long. I mean if you could facilitate a debate that'd be great or in any context I would like to discuss but the point is he's coming to philosophical conclusions and He is not as a non-colleges uniquely suited to do that Secondly now I would not know how to treat someone with Prostate cancer I assume he does and I respect him but when he comes to philosophical conclusions He doesn't have any special authority all of us as human beings can think and can use logic and should we use critical thinking and logic? secondly I One thing that I have always done and Ben Has always done and I thought Ben did a very good job in his interview with you We respect these reports unlike some people we we argue they really are Being honest and these events really occurred they experienced that the only question is what their meaning is so we stipulate every all these reports I Mean what would we learn if we I mean if I did a thousand interviews with people I'm stipulating I'm saying okay Everything they say is true. They had these experiences. It seemed as though they were Riding on the wing of a butterfly. It seemed as though they talked to Jesus Colton burpo thought that he sat at the table with Jesus and so forth Stipulate all that's true Now what are the philosophical conclusions that you're going to drop? That's a different point As you know Alex you could talk to thousands of people who've gone to faith healers and they absolutely They're sure that the faith healer cured them. They're sure of it What would it help? I mean I could go talk and let me also just reiterate a point I suppose you don't think you could study Slavery or its impact on people without actually talking to slave Or you can't talk about the economy of China without going and talking to Chinese people You can study phenomena and study them very carefully and then pinpoint the issues that are important to you Without going out in the field and and doing field research. I Could John it's just this is what you and then it's kind of a silly discussion at some point We're just kind of rehashing the same thing over and over again If you go back to dr. Long's first comment that I played and I think people will get this So I don't want to just kind of beat a dead horse. He says look when you're under general anesthesia You don't have a conscious experience as we understand it. That's the whole point But there's no evidence than anyone does they are Just like you wake up after a dream you wake up There's no evidence that they had the experience Seem to be healed by faith you'll well again you you were you were non responsive You're non-responsive to the research because this is what dr. Long says dr. Long Okay, here's my response. Here's my response. Dr. Long here's people say I Had this experience while I was under general anesthesia Now my point is you can have a million people say that just like you could have a million people tell you that they were Heals by a faith dealer or the answer went away because they took The penny sartory clip and I show you there's someone how many people do you want? And try to address the timing issue Jeff Long addresses the timing issue. They all say the same response to penny sartory's research Then you started saying does she have a bias is she somehow not being supervised even though it's peer reviewed research It's just it's just sloppy on your point. This isn't a philosophical question So philosophical questions related to it, but these are medical researchers. No, we're really looking at the data Conclusion that consciousness is not in the brain. It's out there. It's somehow out there and our brain somehow Receive it and Kim Van Lommel, of course holds the same view and he highly touts the sartory's book I would say this she Deserves serious attention her insights about the relationship between NDE's and end-of-life those are important and I can't just dismiss it out out of hand. I don't have enough information I mean sounds like No, I'm not the one who starts by saying that are that we are wrangling money from The Templeton Foundation and our nerdy little book doesn't engage with the science And you're the one who starts by accusing me of not responding to the research. I have responded to the research No research. That's the point two points one our devices are not now Capable of saying whether the brain is actually functioning in the right way, but more importantly If someone wakes up from a dream and said I dreamt that I was home with my father and mother When I was young and they abused me or whatever or we had this wonderful trip to Disneyland It does not follow that they were actually conscious back then or having conscious experiences of that time Their brain was ramping up as they were getting to ready to wake up So the brain was functioning when they had these experiences It seemed as though the experiences were of a long time ago But they were actually underwritten by brain activity and the same thing may well be true of near-death experiences and Nothing that dr. Long or dr. Sartori or dr. Van Lamo or any of them say Goes to that issue. I am responding. That's exactly what dr. Sartori's research goes to no Is that issue is that if people have recollections that are verifiable of their resuscitation? That addresses the timing issue in a way that hasn't been done before and I would mention That I would have to look when he's research has been replicated by San Parnia and Janice Holden I don't know if you just don't understand this or if you're just kind of in denial But that the reason they did that research was specifically to address this kind of goofy ramp up kind of thing or this these other Things that people throw at it just because they don't understand They don't want to let me let me say this that these researchers are coming to I Respect those people and I will at some point. I'm sure I'll look more carefully at what you're saying I Would say that I have just as you are skeptical of science and of the Conclusions that scientists sometimes come to and just like you point out that the most important things About meaning and metaphysics and religion and ethics are not decided by science I would want to look very carefully at their empirical results and Look at what their conclusions are and I don't claim to have the answers. I never been and I never claimed to have the answers I Just think that what one wants to do is be very very careful about one's logic let me reiterate if you could facilitate a discussion between me and Dr. Long or dr. Sartoria I would Welcome it and I'm sure I would benefit and learn from it I would like to participate just as just as I have discussed these issues with dr. Parnia and Our researchers in Europe and in Israel. I would love to learn from them Well, you know that if you want to do that I mean, I guess I could maybe help facilitate that but as I as I played in that clip I Don't think anyone takes this philosophical research approach that you've taken that it just It just doesn't wash so maybe these guys would talk to you Maybe they won't but they're out doing real research in the field collecting data That is kind of meaningful from a neuroscience standpoint. I don't think anyone sees this as a Philosophy first question. There's a philosophy second question about meaning and some of this other stuff But in terms of sorting through the medical data the philosophy can't I don't understand why do you think? Philosophy will help us understand the way what you said is these people are out doing serious work But Dr. Long had the time to talk to you multiple times Dr. Parnia had the time to talk to you so maybe they would have the Open-mindedness and willingness to have a friendly conversation with me reach out to him John if they want to do it I'm happy to facilitate it. I'm just You know, I guess the wrap-up question would be and you've spent an hour with me Hey, you know what this is kind of what the show is all about in terms of people willing to engage in Discussion and we don't have to agree on everything for me to respect the fact that you're willing to come on and Defend your ideas and defend your book and defend your research I guess the the wrap-up question You know what forget about the wrap-up question because I've kind of hammered enough of that Why don't you tell folks a little bit more about because we didn't really talk about the broader Work that you do at UC Riverside all the things that you're interested in because it's not just near-death experience It's a lot of questions surrounding death Immortality and the philosophy of death So tell people a little bit more about the other work that you've done. Okay, and I also want to thank you for having me on I really appreciate it and Disagreement as a philosopher, that's our lifeblood. We're used to it We're used to not being able to resolve questions. So I really really appreciate it and I Believe in being strong in my my views. Let me say that as we approach any interesting existential topic We're gonna want different inputs Not just philosophy. We're gonna want medicine. We're gonna want to read and If possible engage in as many interviews as we can But I don't think we just want philosophy and I just I don't think we just want interviews by MDs we want the total picture and we want a package that makes sense and all I have pointed out is Doctors they think they know a lot of stuff and they think their authorities on just about everything But even in medicine, you have to ask the tough questions of the doctors often They don't know the right answers But when they are venturing into questions about meaning and metaphysics and the mind They are not uniquely suited to make the analysis. We have to add in philosophy But I I really want to thank you again. I respect the fact that you're willing to consider different perspectives and I have an Invitation to discuss these matters with anyone, but let me say I'm interested in life and death I'm interested in what happens after we die I'm interested in whether we could be immortal or whether we would want to be immortal either in an afterlife or a secular kind of living forever I'm interested in what near-death experiences can teach us about the meaning of life and About end of life care and if you read my new book death Immortality and meaning in life. I emphasize the beauty and the awe-inspiring nature of near-death experiences And how they point us to the importance of guidance in the last part of our journey At least our living journey guidance by loved Trusted mentors from the known to the unknown and how important loving companionship is I think that this is the lesson of near-death experiences. So Maybe what I could also say is my main Area of research throughout my career has been on free will and moral responsibility and ethics so I'm interested in a whole package of views and when I got the Grant from the Templeton Foundation and by the way, I didn't wrangle it from them They reached out to me and I believe you'll find that they're very very happy with the results and we have a legacy page Which your listeners and viewers might be interested in they could just Google immortality project legacy page or SPT that's not stands for science philosophy and theology in more SPT immortality project or You'll see there over a hundred books and articles that came out of it scientists philosophers theologians religious believers atheists What I what I wanted to say is I never even knew about near-death experiences until I got the grant that was seven years ago. I Want to emphasize I have not spent my life on this one of the big Emphasies of the Templeton Foundation is humility intellectual humility. I Openly admit I am not a world-class expert on these. I'm a human being I'm trained as a philosopher and I bring my perspective to what I hope will be a holistic Investigation of these matters Okay, well great John and again we can be the mutual admiration society in terms of engaging in these Discussions these conversations. So thanks again, and I will I will bounce the idea off of Jeff Long. I'm not good. I Can put another I've done so many of these. Yeah, you got the experience, but hey It's awesome for you to want to reach out in that way. So Thanks again so much and take care. Thank you. Thank you very much Thanks again to dr. John Fisher for joining me today on skeptico the one question I'd have to tee up from this interview We try and spit this out our Indie ease of philosophy first question When we really boil it down that seems to be the the main thrust of John's argument And if you go back and listen to the interview that I did with Ben his co-author Which I have to say I went and re-listen to it It's it's a really good episode if I must say so myself so I'll have a link to it I hope you go back and listen to it. There's a lot of great old episodes back in the vault there, but in that previous interview Ben expounds on this theory of how philosophy can really explain Near-death experience and uses an analogy of a fire And he says, you know, if you have a fire in your house And somebody looks at just one cause of the fire Then they may be missing the interrelationship between multiple causes Now this seems to me like an incredibly incredibly naive View of what near-death experience researchers do on a day-to-day basis. I mean, I think doctors are always looking at Multiple causes and how all variables need to be controlled But maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there's some deep deep Philosophy there that I didn't understand So let me know your thoughts on this question as Always the best place to reach me and to talk about other people who are Really into this show is through the skeptical forum Which you can farm through the website or you can find just by going to skeptical dash form calm And be sure to check out skeptical website where you'll find this show and many many other Preview shows all available for free download MP3 taking go do it you well and While you're there you can check out other things you can subscribe to the newsletter Which is really just kind of a reminder that a new show is up and you can also find contact information Other stuff like that if you need it Well, that's going to do it for today's show Sometimes people get frustrated that I keep Hammering on skeptics, but I feel like I've laid down the gauntlet with the anytime anywhere debate So when people raise their arm and say hey, I got I want to debate I'm 90% of the time. I'm up for it So and I was up for it with John and he's a brave man for coming on and Defending his book So that's going to do it for this episode until next time take care and bye for now