Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of the Dying Brain

Phil

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1st April 2008

Towards a Cognitive Neuroscience of the Dying Brain

Published in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 2 (2008)

Jason J Braithwaite offers an in-depth analysis and critique of the survivalist’s neuroscience of near-death experiences

Introduction
THERE IS a growing perception that the existence of near-death experiences (NDEs) poses a serious challenge to current scientific understandings of the brain, mind and consciousness (Braude, 2003; Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Parnia & Fenwick, 2002; Parnia, Spearpoint & Fenwick, 2007; Parnia, Waller, Yeates & Fenwick, 2001; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1998, 1982). This was reaffirmed recently in a high-impact publication which received world wide attention (van Lommel, van Wees, Meyers, & Elfferich, 2001). This is in some friction with the dominant view from mainstream neuroscience; that the mind is, what the brain does (for comprehensive reviews, see Gray, 2004; van Hemmen & Sejnowski, 2006; Kanwisher & Duncan, 2004). According to the current scientific view, consciousness is an emergent property of the human brain in action. Within mainstream science, this is hardly a controversial or indeed unsupported viewpoint.

Like a number of studies before them (Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Parnia & Fenwick, 2002; Parnia, et al., 2001; Ring, 1980; Sabom, 1998), van Lommel et al. (2001) argued that their NDE research findings support the need for a radical revision of mainstream views concerning the relationship between the brain and consciousness. The implication is that the mind may be separable from the brain and hence we may all survive bodily death (known as the survivalist position). In contrast, other researchers have suggested that these experiences are hallucinations, the final visions produced by a massively disinhibited and dying brain (Blackmore, 1996, 1993, 1992, 1990; Braithwaite, 1998; Carr, 1982, 1981; Jansen, 1996, 1990; SaavedraAguilar & Gomez-Jeria, 1989). Although the various dying-brain accounts may concentrate on contributions from different mechanisms, none assume that mind is separate from brain.

The nature of the claim being made by the survivalists should not be underestimated. If true, it would require a truly radical revision of current neuroscience and the known laws of physics. To support such a radical view one would ideally require radical evidence of high quality. Did van Lommel et al. (2001) furnish their interpretations with such evidence? No. Despite its impact in NDE circles, the van Lommel et al. study provides no evidence that human consciousness survives bodily death. This paper briefly examines the factual and logical errors present in the analysis proposed in the van Lommel et al. study. It should be noted that the criticisms outlined here for that study also apply to the other studies promoting the survivalist position which are based on similar arguments.

The study of Pim van Lommel et al. (2001)
Methodologically speaking the van Lommel et al. (2001) study makes a useful contribution. They carried out a prospective study of 344 successfully resuscitated cardiac patients, 18% of whom reported NDEs (12% reported core NDEs). They investigated a host of factors, including demographic variables, age and medical history, and also interviewed patients a number of times over an eight-year period. There is certainly a wealth of useful data gathered by this study and researchers interested in the NDE would do well to consult this work. However, the real problems with the van Lommel et al. study are not so much related to their methods, but their interpretations and conclusions.

Based on their findings, van Lommel et al. (2001) concluded that we now require a new approach to consciousness – one that gives provision for non-irreducibility of the mind to the brain. In other words, the mind is not what the brain does and may indeed be independent of it. This neo-dualism is worrying. It is worrying as it appears to be primarily based on a potent combination of both factual and logical errors concerning the role of the brain in mental experience. The present paper will argue that the conclusions van Lommel et al. propose are at least premature and are at most unfounded. As such, the van Lommel study poses no serious challenge at all to current neuroscientific accounts of the NDE.

Misunderstandings over the role of anoxia: The 18% claim does not support survival
Survivalists have repeatedly misunderstood and misrepresented the dying-brain hypothesis when trying to argue against it (see, e.g., Fenwick, 1995; Fontana, 1992; Parnia & Fenwick, 2001; Parnia et al., 2001; Smythies, 1992). The van Lommel et al. study was no exception. Fundamental to van Lommel et al.’s argument against the dying-brain hypothesis was the observation that only 18% of patients actually reported an NDE. Apparently (according to van Lommel et al.), this supports the case for a whole new approach to consciousness (see also Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Fontana, 1992). I disagree. Their reasoning was as follows. They argued that if cerebral anoxia was crucial for causing these experiences, and these patients experienced the same level of anoxia, then all should have reported NDEs. They state (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2039):

With a purely physiological explanation such as cerebral anoxia for the experience, most patients who have been clinically dead should report one.

Subsequently, they claim (van Lommel et al., 2001, p 2043):

Our results show that medical factors cannot account for occurrence of NDE; although all patients had been clinically dead, most did not have NDE. Furthermore, seriousness of the crisis was not related to occurrence or depth of the experience. If purely physiological factors resulting from cerebral anoxia caused NDE, most of our patients should have had this experience.

From this, van Lommel at al. argued that, as only 18% reported NDE, this is clear evidence against the idea that the experiences are due to a dying brain. If this was the case, then all comparable patients should have reported an NDE. From this point, it appears to have been a small and ‘logical’ progression to directly infer that these experiences must be of paranormal origin and that these experiences index some form of survival of consciousness. This analysis is unsupported, illogical and, academically speaking, misleading.

Before going any further, it is important to be clear that van Lommel et al. (2001) provided no direct measures of anoxia for anyone in their sample. The presence and level of anoxia was indirectly inferred via experiential components provided in questionnaire responses and medical information regarding the nature and duration of the cardiac arrest. While one can accept the general essence of this reasoning, the method is certainly indirect and highly problematic. As a consequence, the claims of the study go far beyond what the data were capable of showing. No hard claims over the levels of anoxia should have been made when there was little or no attempt to measure it directly. This is problematic for van Lommel et al., as their fundamental claim rests on the assumption that patients had comparable levels of anoxia (something which was never shown to be the case). There was no direct evidence, and hence no real reason to assume, that this was the case. As such, the whole rationale of this claim is undermined. While we can accept that those patients whom have suffered longer periods of cardiac insufficiency are more likely to have received greater levels of anoxia, we have no idea what those levels were in each case, or indeed that they were comparable. Comparing patients who have undergone similar durations of cardiac arrest is also no direct metric at all of the balance of blood gases in the brain, as resuscitation methods, their duration, and their efficiency will have varied considerably (not to mention the physical differences across patients).

Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly, the dyingbrain hypothesis makes no such direct claims about the level of anoxia per se. Blackmore (1996, 1993, 1992, 1990) is quite clear on the matter that it is the rate of change or rate of anoxia onset that is important, not the overall level reached (see also Woerlee, 2003, for further evidence). If the onset of anoxia is too fast, patients simply lose consciousness and black out. Here, no conscious experience or memory would occur. With more prolonged rates of onset, the patient can seem somewhat confused and dazed. However, an intermediate level of change seems more conducive to intense altered states and NDEs (Appleby, 1989; Blackmore, 1996, 1993, 1990; Woerlee, 2003). This was a clear point made explicit by Blackmore, who also outlined the many different types of anoxia and their experiential consequences yet this is either completely missed or misunderstood by van Lommel et al. Therefore, the whole logic of this position is based on a false and vastly oversimplified premise concerning the dying brain hypothesis.

Thirdly, van Lommel et al. also totally ignored the degrees of within-brain and between-brain heterogeneity which would have implications for the degree of anoxia present, its rate of onset, and how it could impact on human experience. For example, in terms of within-brain differences, Blackmore (1993) noted that, as well as there being many different forms of anoxia (that have diverse neurophysiological consequences), any given rate of anoxia can impact on different brain areas disproportionately due to cell proximity to arteries and capillaries, to localised cell density, connectivity, and indeed the current levels of demand and activity in the specific neural systems being affected (Blackmore, 1993, 1990; Woerlee, 2003). In a structural sense, differing brain regions have differing numbers of neurons, with diverse connections and characteristics, all of which have differing oxygen demands. In a functional sense, levels of activity across neural systems within and between brain regions will not be matched – and so certain areas will be more susceptible to anoxia than others – based on the current processing demands taking place. In terms of between-brain variability, one illustrative line of evidence is that air-force pilots have been shown to have different thresholds of G-LOC and can tolerate (within a certain degree) a different level of stress and anoxia before losing consciousness (Whinnery, 1997, 1990; see Blackmore, 1993, for a discussion). Under these circumstances the amount of G-force can be controlled, yet clear differences across individuals exist. These differences reflect important physiological characteristics which clearly interact with external stressors. So a given level of anoxia can impact on experience differently across individuals. The van Lommel et al. study ignores these well known and well documented aspects of the dying-brain account.

Finally, a further logical problem is that it is not at all clear how an afterlife hypothesis actually explains the 18% rate of NDE. Surely, if an afterlife existence were real, all those in a position to glimpse it would do so? In other words, if the afterlife existed in some real sense, the real question is why did only 18% glimpse it? Indeed, is it not more of a problem for the afterlife hypothesis that only 18% have reported such experiences? Van Lommel et al. say nothing about this and as such no viable survivalist case was ever made for why only 18% of patients reported NDEs. At the very least, this seems to be an opportunity lost by the authors.

Misplaced confidence in EEG measurements
Within NDE research, a number of investigators have argued that a flat electroencephalogram (EEG) reading can be taken as evidence of total brain inactivity (and van Lommel et al. recruit this argument into their interpretation; Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Parnia & Fenwick, 2001; Parnia et al., 2001; Sabom, 1998). This claim is totally incorrect. It is certainly the case that a flat cortical EEG would be indicative of a brain that is in some trouble. Assuming no technical error or problems with electrode contact, a flat EEG is far from desirable. However, the assumption that a flat EEG can be taken as strong evidence of global and total brain inactivity is unfounded. (It is also noteworthy that the studies making large claims about flat EEGs provide no information regarding the level of gain employed on the EEG device, assuming they were digital-QEEG devices. This would seem important as any EEG can become almost flat with the gain turned to a minimum. A flat EEG at maximum gain would be more indicative of neocortical inactivity, though again, not full-brain inactivity).

Unless surgically implanted into the brain directly, the EEG principally measures surface cortical activity. The waveforms seen in cortical EEG are largely regarded to come from the synchronistic firing of cortical pyramidal neurons. As such, it is entirely conceivable that deep sub-cortical brain structures could be firing, and even in seizure, in the absence of any cortical signs of this activity (for evidence based on electrical stimulation and seizure propagation, see Gloor, 1986; Gloor, Olivier, Quesney, Andermann, & Horowitz, 1982). Indeed, evidence reviewed by Gloor (1986) argued that inter-ictal discharges in the hippocampus or amygdala alone were more than sufficient to produce complex meaningful hallucinations – no involvement from the cortex was necessary!

A related idea is that seizure-based hallucinatory EEG patterns have been absent from the background EEG in some instances of NDE, even when the EEG itself was not flat (Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995). By this account, if the NDE was a hallucinatory process based in disinhibition, then the logic is that such disinhibition should be clearly visible in the EEG at that time.

However, the emerging evidence is somewhat unhelpful for the survivalist. Tao, Ray, Hawes-Ebersole, and Ebersole (2005) compared EEG activity from surgically implanted electrodes placed in or around deep sub-cortical regions of epileptic patients, with cortical EEG electrodes placed on the scalp of the same patients. The results were quite surprising. Tao et al. showed that for 90% of cases, large amplitude paroxysmal firing needed to recruit 10 cm2 of brain tissue in order to show up against background cortical EEG traces. In other words, large seizure-based activity was being recorded by the surgically implanted electrodes (indexing clear and widespread brain-seizure activity) which was completely absent from scalp-based EEG traces until it propagated through and excited 10 cm2 of brain volume. This is a considerable amount of brain tissue.

Furthermore, a recent study that employed both EEG and brain-imaging (fMRI) techniques to explore seizure processes found significant increases in localised cortical neural activity (indicative of a seizure) in the fMRI BOLD (blood-oxygen-level dependant) response, which was completely absent from the EEG data (Kobayashi, Hawco, Grova, Dubeau, & Gotman, 2006). This is particularly striking in that this occurred despite the fact that the intense seizure activity occurred in a region where EEG electrodes were closely spaced. Kobayashi et al. note that this is striking as the EEG completely missed the most intensely discharging region despite the fact that this region was also located at the cortical level.

The implication for NDE research is, of course, that the EEG does not provide a highly reliable measure of complete neural activity. Even high-amplitude seizure activity can fail to manifest itself in the background EEG if it does not recruit enough neural landscape. To summarise, confidence in previous claims that flat EEG represents total neural inactivity appears severely misplaced. These cases may represent instances of ‘false positives’ (positive from the perspective of the survivalist wanting to recruit such instances as evidence of a dead brain). In addition, even in the presence of a background EEG, seizure-based activity (which is sufficient to support hallucinatory imagery and aura) could be considerable and yet may not become manifest in the cortical scalp-based EEG. Note also that the above empirical estimates were based on epileptic brains which produce large-amplitude brain activity. These estimates themselves may need to be increased even further for the normal non-epileptic brain which does not typically produce such high-amplitude synchronistic characteristics.

What the dying brain hypothesis really says: The importance of neural disinhibition
When one considers the dying-brain account in its full context it is clear to see that the emphasis placed on cerebral anoxia misses the true essence of the account. As a consequence, many of the criticisms against the dying-brain hypothesis border on the irrelevant. For the dying-brain account, the central assumption does not revolve around the presence or absence of anoxia per se, but of neural disinhibition. So the dying-brain hypothesis is perhaps more accurately characterised as one that models NDEs as an experiential consequence of a disinhibited brain (Blackmore, 1996, 1993, 1992, 1990; Braithwaite, 1998; Carr, 1982, 1981; Jansen, 1996, 1990; Saavedra-Aguilar & Gomez-Jeria, 1989; Woerlee, 2003). Of course, such neural disinhibition can be induced by anoxia, and it is likely that under more prolonged near-death situations it is likely to be present but, as a process, disinhibition can actually be triggered by many psychological and neurological factors such as confusion, trauma, sensory deprivation, illness, pathology, epilepsy, migraine, drug use and brain stimulation (for comprehensive reviews, see Appleby, 1989; Baldwin, 1970; Blackmore, 1993; Sacks, 1995; Siegal, 1980). Without exception, all these instances that induce neural disinhibition and seizure-type activity can all be associated with aura and hallucination.

In principle then, anoxia does not need to be present at all to produce hallucinatory imagery. However, under cases where people are ‘near death’ or suffer cardiac insufficiency for any prolonged period of time, it is likely (i.e., reasonable to assume) a degree of anoxia would be present. Therefore, while anoxia is one route via which disinhibition can occur, it is by no means the only route. In addition, the dying-brain hypothesis predicts that more vivid, profound, and meaningful NDEs are likely to be associated with greater degrees of disinhibition. Thus, NDEs reported when people truly are nearer to death (and hence the level of disinhibition would conceivably be greater), should be more vivid, profound, detailed and meaningful, relative to those reported when people only believed themselves to be so. This is exactly what has been found (Drab, 1981; Gabbard & Twemlow, 1984; Gabbard, Twemlow, & Jones, 1981; Owens, Cook, & Stevenson, 1990).

The idea that disinhibition underlies these striking perceptions is further evidenced by the brain’s very limited scope for tolerating abnormal states and how it typically responds when it does encounter them. By far, the most common reaction from the brain to such states is disinhibition and seizure. Very small changes in the neural environment have been shown to be more than sufficient to impact on the fine balance maintained in the brain. For example, a 10-15% reduction in GABA inhibition is sufficient to significantly increase seizure propagation in cortical tissue, and changes of a few millimoles in extracellular potassium levels can turn a stable neural population into an epileptogenic one (Chagnac-Amitai & Connors, 1989; Haglund & Schwartzkroin, 1990; Korn, Giacchino, Chamberlin, & Dingledine, 1987). The ranges of these values are well within those encountered under normal brain functioning. The real question then becomes not one of whether disinhibition or seizure could be involved in contexts conducive to NDE but, as Schwartzkroin (1997) states, more one of why seizures are not indeed far more common and why are we are not all having seizures constantly!

There is a further conundrum for the survivalist: in order for any experience to be remembered (assuming some form of perceptual experience occurred), memory must have encoded and represented the experience in the first place. Applied to the NDE, this means that there must have been sufficient neural activity to encode the experience, to represent the experience, and to store the experience (even a glimpse of an afterlife would require this). As far as current science is concerned, it is not at all clear how a memory of an experience can occur without the use of memory itself. The very fact that these experiences were ‘remembered’ in the first place suggests that memory itself was functioning and encoding at the time of the experience (meaning there was neural activity in those brain regions during the experience, which may indeed have been responsible for the experience).

Of course false-memories show that we can remember the palpably untrue as a real memory, but these false memories are often based on illusory conjunctions between other encoded information represented in our memory systems (see Brainerd & Reyna, 2005). A false memory still requires an intact memory system, or at the very least, a partially intact one. In addition to this, other survivalists have argued that a brain near-death is too unstable to support vivid hallucination, and so cannot be an explanation for NDE (Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Parnia & Fenwick, 2002; Parnia, et al., 2001). The logical problem, however, for these researchers is: if the brain is too unstable to support hallucination, how is it possible for it to be stable enough to ‘remember’ mystical experience? A further problem is that it is factually incorrect; all disinhibitory models of brain function have provision for stable vivid hallucination (for examples, see Blackmore, 1993; Cowan, 1982; Sacks, 1995). Indeed, a disinhibited brain could produce an experience that is ‘more vivid’ and stable than even veridical perception as that experience would be endowed with ferocious neural activity, at least for a given time period. In addition, the survivalists assume that neural stability and cognitive stability are one and the same thing, which is certainly not the case.

This is the crucial logical fallacy of this whole field of research: how can one memorise an event in the absence of a working and functioning memory system? If, as the survivalists claim, the brain is dead then surely, so is memory. If memory is dead, then how can individuals remember anything – even if the original experience was mystical? The only way around this for the survivalist is to add some more untested assumptions and degrees of freedom that are tailored to allow for some paranormal mechanism in the first place. However, this again is a folly. Firstly, it violates the principles of Occam’s razor by adding assumptions that are clearly unjustified. Secondly, it begs the question, assuming to be true that which it seeks to argue is true in the first place. It thus represents a hopeless case of circular reasoning. The survivalists can only make their arguments work here by assuming further, untested, supernatural ideas to be true. This is a serious error of reason, and one that undermines the argument to the level of uselessness.

Finally, the inescapable fact for the survivalist is that the brain is constantly trying to make sense of the ambiguous information it is given to arrive at a stable and coherent interpretation. If the context and information provided to the senses are unfamiliar, odd and bizarre, then one should not be surprised if the resulting conscious experience is somewhat unfamiliar, odd and bizarre (Cooney & Gazzaniga, 2003). This fits neatly with developments in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience that views neurocognition as an active model-building process. According to recent emerging scientific frameworks, even stable conscious experience is something of a fiction, but a far lesser fiction than other possible alternative realities. By this account, stable perception and indeed consciousness itself can be viewed as a form of controlled hallucination (Bentall, 1990; Claxton, 2005; Morgan 2003). Once it is realised that normal perception itself can be viewed, to some degree, as a stable and successful hallucination, it is hardly a leap to view NDEs as an extension of this natural process. The NDE then is merely a greater fiction that serves a temporary purpose for consciousness in that, for a short while, it represents reality in the absence of the more usual and stable reality provided by the senses (Blackmore, 1993; Braithwaite, 1998; Claxton, 2005; Morgan, 2003).

Other common misunderstandings
For neuroscientists, the fact that many components of the NDE are very similar to experiences associated with pathology, disease, illness, neurological conditions (e.g., schizophrenia, autoscopy, Charles-Bonnet syndrome, migraine aura, epilepsy aura) and direct forms of brain stimulation is a strong indication that such experiences have an underlying neural correlate (Bentall, 2003; ffytche, 2000, 1999, 1998; Gloor, 1986; Gloor et al., 1982; Bear, 1979; Halgren, Walter, Cherlow, & Crandall, 1978; Sacks, 1995; Siegal, 1980, 1977). There is no component of the NDE that is unique to being ‘near-death’.

Ignoring such strong similarities, survivalists like to highlight the marginal differences and van Lommel et al. (2001) did not miss their opportunity to further add to this confusion. When discussing the experiences associated with direct electrical brain stimulation they stated (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2044):

These recollections, however, consist of fragmented and random memories unlike the panoramic life-review that can occur in NDE. Further, transformational processes with changing life-insight and disappearance of fear of death are rarely reported after induced experiences.

Thus, induced experiences are not identical to NDE…

Firstly, this claim is not entirely correct. Vivid and meaningful experiences are reported by patients undergoing brain stimulation (see Gloor, 1986; Gloor et al., 1982; Bear, 1979; Halgren et al., 1978). Secondly, what the analysis of van Lommel et al. ignores is the crucial role of context. Patients undergoing electrical brain stimulation are typically conscious, know what to expect, are relaxed and enjoy a constant controlled interaction with the surgeon (Gloor, 1986; Gloor et al., 1982; Halgren et al., 1978; Penfield, 1955; Penfield & Perot, 1963). They also receive constant feedback from the surgical team. This is nothing like the experiential context of the typical NDE where the patient is only semi-conscious (at best), and possibly undergoing some form of trauma, confusion, disorientation and dissociation from their surroundings. It is certainly not unreasonable to assume that the small experiential differences between NDE and brain stimulation studies can be explained, to some degree, by these large differences in context. This is certainly a far more probable conclusion than that of mind-brain dualism.

Furthermore, the reason the experiences under artificial circumstances are perhaps more brief and fragmented has nothing to do with a special status for the NDE, but more to do with the fact that the surgeon temporarily stimulates specific neuronal cell assemblies in an attempt to hone in on the type of aura experiences that the patients report as part of their epileptic condition. Under these circumstances the stimulation is meant to be brief, localised and controlled, which again is totally unlike a large intense seizure that would likely propagate through more tissue. The surgeon is trying merely to induce aura, not a massive seizure. It is certainly not the aim of the surgeon to induce deep, meaningful and long lasting spiritual experiences. It is usually the case that many experiences are elicited before the sought after aura is induced. Once the region associated with a particular sensation/aura has been identified then the surgery can begin.

To ignore these crucial differences in context is to do more than a disservice to both the relevance of these brain-stimulation studies and the way the dying-brain hypothesis recruits them into a theoretical framework. The dying-brain hypothesis states that the fact that highly similar experiences occur through direct interaction with neural tissue strongly implicates the role of the brain in the NDE. It never claimed that the experiences under both contexts should be identical – simply because both contexts are not identical! To illustrate this further, imagine you become stranded in a busy city centre and need to find your way home. The feeling associated with being stranded would be totally different if that city centre was familiar to you versus being completely unfamiliar and foreign to you. This is despite the fact that the same process, that of being stranded, underlies both experiences.

In their discussion and interpretation, van Lommel et al. (2001) perpetuate a further common misunderstanding in NDE research regarding the co-occurrence of an NDE and the presence of flat EEG profiles. They ask (van Lommel et al., 2001, p. 2044):

How could a clear consciousness outside one’s body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?

This question is loaded and flawed. It is flawed because there are no documented cases that clearly show that NDE occurred at the precise time that the EEG was flat. This appears to be merely assumed. In any given case a flat EEG may occur and a patient may report an NDE, but there is no evidence that these two events occur at the same time. Although some have tried to make the argument for a link (Fenwick & Fenwick, 1995; Parnia & Fenwick, 2002; Parnia et al., 2001; Sabom, 1998), others have questioned this and shown it to be untrue, at least for the cases so far investigated and followed up by independent researchers (Blackmore, 1993; Braithwaite, 1998; French, 2001). It thus becomes loaded as it assumes something to be true, which has never indeed been reliably shown to be true. As such, the question is pointless in this context. To be fair, the van Lommel group are not the only ones to make this error, but their study represents one of the latest and highest impacting studies to make the mistake. Furthermore, as already explained, because flat EEG profiles do not necessarily index complete brain inactivity, even if such cases did exist it would not provide strong or convincing evidence that these experiences are taking place when the brain was dead. Instead, these arguments seem to reflect little more than a combination of poor understandings of brain science, selective evidence, and an uncritical acceptance of anecdotal reports.

Like others before them, van Lommel et al. (2001, p. 2044) imply that the NDE is severely problematic for contemporary cognitive neuroscience:

NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation.

However, the evidence recruited in support of this statement is deeply unconvincing. Although the dying-brain hypothesis is far from complete, it is much further from being obsolete. All scientific accounts are in constant need of revision or refutation and the dying-brain hypothesis is no exception. Indeed, this is the process of science itself. As contemporary cognitive neuroscience progresses, the dying brain hypothesis should expect serious revision – though it is unlikely this will be to the benefit of the survivalist. In addition, the NDE should be considered a legitimate area of research for neuroscience and scientists could certainly learn a great deal about the brain and cognitive function by studying such instances. However, it is difficult to see what one could learn from the paranormal survivalist position which sets out assuming the truth of that which it seeks to establish, makes additional and unnecessary assumptions, misrepresents the current state of knowledge from mainstream science, and appears less than comprehensive in its analysis of the available facts. Scientifically speaking, confidence in the survivalist position would seem, at least at present, to be misplaced.

Conclusion
The van Lommel study was a major investigation published in a high-impact medical journal that received world-wide coverage. While methodologically speaking the study was well carried out and is a valuable contribution to the field, the interpretations of the findings offered by the authors seem fanciful at best. The logical and factual mistakes in the interpretation of the study seem common to this field of research and show no sign of dissipating. Like many before it, the van Lommel et al. study has served to do little more than propagate poor understanding of brain science, which seems common to the survivalist approach. I know of no arguments proposed by the survivalists against the dying brain hypothesis which actually characterise the dying-brain hypothesis accurately. The van Lommel et al. study was no exception. Such arguments are at least disingenuous and, at most, active attempts to avoid crucial information. If, at the very least, future survivalists attempted to characterise and represent the dying-brain hypothesis appropriately before arguing against it, they would certainly be making a unique contribution to the literature from that perspective.

It is important to be clear that van Lommel et al. provided no evidence at all that the mind or consciousness is separate from brain processes. In addition, there were no direct measures of anoxia, and no measures of neuroelectrical brain activity from their patients. Their findings are entirely consistent with contemporary neuroscience and are in line with the general dying-brain account of NDE. As such, this study poses no challenge at all to either psychological or neuroscientific accounts for the NDE. From this we can see that their claim of the need for a new science of consciousness (which makes provision for some form of dualism) is unfounded and unnecessary. In the absence of strong evidence for survival, it appears that the position of the survivalist is still one based on faith.

Full bibliographic references are available in the printed article.

eHealth: Skeptic at Large

Health

Wendy M. Grossman

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1st April 2008

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Published in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 2 (2008)

Wendy Grossman examines how technology and treatment combine in the modern healthcare system.

I’VE SPENT the last couple of months interviewing people on the subject of ehealth. Mostly, these are companies who want to sell the NHS things – implantable medical devices that send patient data to doctors over a secure connection, the networking behind those connections, computerised management systems, and so on. The good news is that all of these companies are serious medical companies. So far, not one has proposed sending crystal vibrations across the Internet via synchronised concentration or proposed to supply home homeopathic remedy manufacturing kits.

Instead, the modern pacemaker has sensors and an internal processor to store the data the sensors collect, plus a wireless connection that lets the patient pass a mouse-like antenna over his chest to read the data, which can then be sent down an ordinary telephone line to a secure website. There, the doctor can read and assess it. The idea is a win all round: the patient doesn’t have to travel to the hospital, and the doctor can spend less time on routine visits and accordingly more on the patients who really need his time.

And that’s just one example. We’re talking hospital-supplied tablet computers that run video games as well as allowing hospital staff to show you your patient records and graphical pictures of your innards for discussion. We’re talking digital radiography, electronic patient records (with all the privacy issues those involve), turning pathology labs from a cottage industry into a modernised hub-and-spoke network of high-volume processors, and slapping barcodes or radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on everything from patients to scalpels to reduce wastage, improve safety, and cut costs in the supply chain. If it all works it will be fabulous.

We’ve generally said that the growth of so-called alternative medicine has been fuelled by the increasing remoteness of today’s medical service. Personal relation- ships with doctors are becoming as rare as personal relationships with bank managers. The average GP’s practice has thousands of patients, only the unhealthiest of whom probably know their doctors at all.

Oddly enough, the remote monitoring techniques the ehealth companies are talking about as necessary to make the NHS’s resources cover the needs of the population could take this trend either way. Patients with devices that can be monitored remotely may in fact feel in closer touch with their doctors if they get frequent reports (even if those reports are automated) about their condition than they do now with two to four routine appointments a year. On the other hand, it’s also easy to imagine that patients will be getting their automated reports from service centres based in India, where the staff will be reading treatment instructions from scripts.

I’d gotten as far as this when Simon Singh handed me a copy of the new book he’s written with Edzard Ernst, Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. And there, very helpfully, on page 65, as part of a discussion of the placebo effect and the importance of double-blind trials, they write about the Hawthorne effect: “It has been shown that the act of close monitoring can lead to a generally positive change in a person’s health or performance.”

It seems logical to think of the placebo effect as deriving from alleviating fear and anxiety and the key is trusting your doctor. Of course there are always physical causes, but it’s the rare condition that is improved by get- ting the patient to panic. Close monitoring seems like an obvious way to diminish patient anxiety in a lot of cases.

The IT-skeptics among you will already have spotted the bluebottle in the unguent: since when does IT work the way we’re told it’s going to? I would do these inter- views during the day and then wander the Web at night, finding the stories the vendors didn’t mention. For example, Choose and Book, the electronic system intended to give patients control over doctors’ appointments, entertainingly sent the wrong appointment details to 340 patients. Fun! (OK, be fair, that’s out of seven million appointments it’s made.) And that fancy new implanted defibrillating gizmo? A bunch of MIT guys discovered they could hack into the stream of data in transit. Dismiss the likelihood of this all you like; if your doctor is seeing you remotely, you are your data, and it had better be secured against tampering.

Of course, no one gets to open up someone’s chest and plonk in a medical device without regulatory approval. But as I understand it, what gets studied is the efficacy of the device itself – does it synchronize the chambers, or defibrillate, or whatever it’s supposed to do? As far as I’m aware, other than anecdotal evidence no one is comparing the outcome of remote monitoring versus traditional hospital appointments. Let’s leave aside my morbid fantasy that as resources get tighter some bean-counter will come in and point out that if patient data can be read and assessed remotely, it might as well be done in Bombay instead of Basingstoke. Can the placebo effect survive the Internet? P.S. I can highly recommend Singh and Ernst’s book. Good stuff.

An Evening with James Randi & Friends – a review

Phil

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1st April 2008

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This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 21, Issue 2, from 2008.

It was like a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Those lucky enough to have secured seats grasped their booking references tightly like golden tickets. The Willy Wonka of scepticism, the Evel Knievel of debunking, James ‘The Amazing’ Randi was in town. When it was announced that The Skeptic magazine, in collaboration with Skeptics in The Pub, were organizing ‘An Evening with James Randi and Friends’, the five hundred or so available tickets sold out in a matter of days.Described by some as the founding father of modern day scepticism, Randi, the former escapologist and magician, has done more than anyone else to expose charlatanry and pseudo-science. He has authored devastating critiques of Uri Geller, evangelical faith healers and the writings of Nostradamus, as well as writing the seminal Flim-Flam!, Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other Delusions. His longstanding offer of a million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities under controlled conditions remains unclaimed.

Randi doesn’t get to the UK often so, when his visit was announced, the organisers of the event decided on Conway Hall as a suitably sized venue. The unassuming building nestles in a quiet London square and is home to the South Place Ethical Society as well as the recently inaugurated London branch of the Center for Inquiry.

In addition to Randi, the evening featured an impressive roster of guest speakers, and the ebullient Richard Wiseman hosted the evening. Professor Wiseman has gained a reputation as a champion of science and critical thinking on both sides of the Atlantic. Also formerly a professional magician, he is now Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at Hertfordshire University and has an interest in the psychology of deception. Wiseman did a brilliant job of introducing each speaker, his presentations peppered with demonstrations of magic as well as explanations of some of the psychological principals involved. (Most importantly though, he was extremely funny!)

The first speaker was Professor Chris French. As well as being head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (APRU) at Goldsmiths College, London (and co-editor of this publication), he is also a leading sceptical figure in the UK media and is the “go-to guy” when a sceptical perspective is required on a TV or radio show on the paranormal. Professor French spoke about the growth of scepticism in the UK (helped in no small part by groups such as Skeptics in the Pub who have steadily seen their numbers rising) as well as describing the work of his research unit. The APRU focuses on finding non-paranormal explanations for ostensibly paranormal experiences. This is a highly important direction for research as it is one thing to simply deny paranormal claims, but a far more potent response is to show evidence for prosaic explanations of the causes of paranormal experiences. The more we understand about ourselves, the less need there will be to resort to supernaturalism to explain the stranger end of human experience.

Simon Singh followed. One of the UK’s most successful science authors, his books Fermat’s Last Theorem, The Code Book and Big Bang have sold in large numbers and have paved the way for a slew of popular science books. Dr Singh spoke about the beauty of the scientific method and then in what must have been one of the evening’s most memorable moments, he demonstrated the signature orange light emitted by sodium atoms by connecting a gherkin to the mains! Singh’s new book Trick Or Treatment? Alternative Medicine On Trial (co-authored with Edzard Ernst, the world’s first Professor of Complementary Medicine) has just been published and is a rigorous and uncompromising assessment of the evidence for and against alternative medicine.

Next to the stage was Ben Goldacre who must surely have the gift of manipulating space-time itself. How else could anyone manage a full-time career as a medical doctor as well as be such a prolific blogger and journalist? (Goldacre’s column in The Guardian is always excellent.) A technical hitch meant that the slide presentation didn’t work, but we were still treated to a superb talk on the power of the placebo effect. Apparently studies have shown that four sugar pills are more effective than two, and the colour of pills and their packaging can impact on effectiveness, and, perhaps most remarkably, drugs which normally induce nausea are seen to reduce sickness in pregnant women when they are told that the drug is an anti-nausea medication. This suggests that in some cases, the placebo effect is powerful enough to act in opposition to the known pharmacological effects of substances!

The final guest speaker before Randi was Dr Susan Blackmore. Years studying parapsychology in the belief that proof of the existence of ESP was there to be found established Blackmore as a leading figure in British parapsychology. With typical impassioned delivery, Dr Blackmore recounted her story. A life changing out-of-body experience whilst a student at Oxford sparked her interest in the paranormal and prompted her to pursue a PhD in parapsychology, but eventually a lack of positive results, as well as the discovery that researchers at Cambridge were obtaining such results by cheating, led Blackmore to become a sceptic. One might think that someone who started off earnestly searching for proof of the paranormal but changed her mind in the face of the evidence (or lack thereof) might be respected for having the strength of character to admit a mistake. But for Blackmore this was not the case. She spoke of receiving vindictive hate-mail from believers accusing her of being closed minded (the irony of this obviously having escaped the authors of such communications).

A few years ago Dr Blackmore withdrew from public scepticism, but her recent debate with theologian Alister McGrath (she completely demolished him), as well as comments made during the Randi evening suggest that she may be returning to the fold. This could be very good news for the sceptical community!

By now the anticipation was palpable. After a brief introduction and a video retrospective on Randi, the man himself walked onto the stage. It’s hard to describe the feeling in the room at that point. The thunderous applause conveyed the profound respect and gratitude that the audience felt towards Randi. He has dedicated his entire life to fighting the spread of irrational beliefs, not just because he knows he’s right, but more importantly, because he knows that genuine suffering follows all too often as a consequence of accepting extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence.

Randi began by speaking about his biography currently being written by Penn Jillette’s biographer, entitled I am James Randi and I will Die Today. The title comes from the days when, as a professional mentalist, Randi would each day write this sentence on the back of a business card along with his signature and the date and carry it with him, just in case.

He says the difference between a stage magician (or conjuror) and a self-proclaimed psychic is that the magician has an unspoken agreement with his audience. He will lie, cheat and generally employ all manner of deception in order to fool them; but this is part of the act. He is doing it purely for the benefit of their entertainment. Once the show is over, so too is the deception.

In contrast, the psychic demands the suspension of disbelief on a permanent basis. Randi draws the analogy of a Shakespearian actor asking the audience to accept that he really is the prince of Denmark. “Why are we not insulted by this?” he asked, “And why do such claims go largely unchallenged in our culture?”

The JREF Million dollar offer will be ending in 2010. Currently, applicants for the prize are asked to answer three simple questions: What can they do? With what accuracy, and under what conditions? This would seem to be the most straightforward of requests, but Randi points out that 85% of claimants never get as far as even answering these initial questions. He explained that once the challenge is withdrawn, the million dollars would be used to fund scholarships and research projects.

Randi spoke about the methodology in his test designs. The idea, he said, is to leave no room for interpretation or argument. The tests should be designed so as to negate the need for judgment of any kind. As an example, we heard of a test recently conducted in Japan where a man was claiming that his spirit guides could tell him the contents of sealed envelopes.

One method of testing would be to have the man guess at what was in a selection of sealed envelopes but this, according to Randi is not the best approach. What if the envelope contains a picture of a bicycle and the man guesses “motorbike”? Is that a hit or a miss? How about car or train? This method requires a subjective choice to be made about what constitutes a positive or negative result. Randi’s test involved the man having to match up twenty different pictures to envelopes containing copies of those pictures, thereby neatly sidestepping the issue of what should count as a hit. It’s a quantum affair: The picture either matches what’s in the envelope or it doesn’t!

In the case of the Japanese remote viewer, the claimant said that he expected to get at least seventeen out of twenty right. In fact he scored at chance level, successfully matching only one picture to the correct envelope. Randi pointed out that any complaints of unfair testing are unfounded as claimants are simply being asked to do what they themselves claim they can do.

At one point, Randi suddenly walked away from the microphone he had been speaking into the whole time, but his voice continued to come from the speakers loud and clear. In fact the microphone was not even plugged in (he was using a lapel microphone). He then also revealed that his glasses were in fact just empty frames with no glass. All this to illustrate his point that we tend to think that we can rely on our assumptions and are beyond being fooled.

The audience was treated to video clips of Randi exposing Peter Popoff and psychic surgeons but perhaps the most poignant moment in Randi’s presentation was his discussion of fellowship amongst sceptics. He underlined how important it is to build sceptical communities where people can come together with a common sense of purpose. This definitely struck a chord as many sceptics have had the experience of feeling isolated as a result of their views. Needless to say, Randi’s talk was followed by a standing ovation.

It has been said that organizing sceptics is like trying to herd cats. ‘An Evening with James Randi and Friends’ certainly disproved the adage. The event was a huge success and was in all likelihood the greatest sceptical event ever to have taken place in the UK. This can only be a good sign of things to come for scepticism in this country.

Jon Cohen is a successful record producer. However, his main passion is scepticism, which he discovered after reading Sagan’s The Demon Haunted World in his early twenties. In 2008, he offered Psychic Surgeon Gary Mannion £50,000 if he could prove his abilities under controlled conditions.

Opening Launch of The Centre for Inquiry London

Skepticism

Sid

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9th February 2008

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Center for Inquiry/Transnational (CFI), an
Amherst, New York based international think tank
promoting reason, science, freedom of inquiry,
and secular humanism, has established the ‘Centre
for Inquiry London’ in the United Kingdom.

The Opening Launch of Centre for Inquiry London
held at Conway Hall, London on 18th January 2008
proved very successful with leading lights from
the British and American academic, sceptical,
secular and humanist communities speaking and
participating in discussions.

Nearly 150 people
attended the day and evening event, and included
delegates from the British Isles, Scandanavia,
Eastern and Western Europe and the US.

The theme of the Inaugural Conference was
“Secularism in the Multicultural Society: The
Civil Limits of Tolerance”. The audience widely
appreciated the contributions of speakers Joseph
Hoffmann, Norman Bacrac, Paul Kurtz, Simon
Glendinning, Norman Solomon, Daphne Hampson, Mark
Vernon, Stephen Law, Azar Majedi, Julian Baggini,
Ibn Warraq, Nigel Warburton, Peter Cave, and D.J.
Grothe.

The event which started at 11.00 am ended
eleven hours later after a lively question and
answer section undertaken by Professor Richard Dawkins
who is the Honorary Chairman
of CFI London’s Advisory Board.

Also very well received was the South Place
Ethical Society (SPES) event on 20th January at
Conway Hall at which CFI representatives spoke.
Ibn Warraq spoke on ‘The Origins of the Koran’
and Professor Paul Kurtz spoke on ‘Secular
Alternatives to Religion’. Over 100 delegates
attended and participated in lively discussions
throughout the day.

Centre for Inquiry London marks the beginning of
CFI’s contributions to education, enrichment, and
research in the United Kingdom, mirroring similar
efforts throughout North America, Europe, and
other parts of the world.

“We are committed to the furtherance of science
and reason in the world, increasingly under
attack by irrational forces, but necessary for
the planetary civilization that is emerging,”
said Paul Kurtz, chairman and founder of CFI.
Through its founder Paul Kurtz, CFI has a
historical association with the United Kingdom
going back four decades.

“It makes good sense,”
said R. Joseph Hoffman, vice president of
educational affairs at CFI, “to express the
solidarity between the two great Anglophone
free-thought traditions through this concrete
expression of international good will and for CFI
to develop a permanent base in the United
Kingdom.”

Hoffmann says that CFI intends to be of
“public intellectual benefit” through research
and education and to work co-operatively to ensure
that a humanist tradition extending back to the
English Renaissance remains vital and
influential.

Several of the delegates to the Opening event
have expressed their interest in further CFI
London events and have indicated they wish to be
involved with CFI London, and a number have
expressed interested in volunteering.

An audio recording of the CFI London Opening will
be available soon.

Suresh Lalvani
Executive Director
Centre for Inquiry London

Inside a Camphill Community

Religion

Phil

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23rd November 2007

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Volume 20 Number 4, Winter 2007

Matthew Provonsha reports on his disillusionment with life in a religious commune

LAST YEAR I spent two months inside a Camphill Community along with other volunteers of various ages from around the world, eager to help others and better myself. I was drawn to communal life, but more importantly I was put off by the society in which I grew up. As a teenage atheist and leftist in the United States I was appalled by the vast increase of religious fervor in public life and by our startling move to the Far Right even during my lifetime. Like so many Americans I was laden with a painful sense of hopelessness. I could only watch television, drink or get high to distract myself. Retreat in one form or another seemed to be the only suitable option.
I was quite enamored with British culture, as well, and wanted nothing more than to see the land which had produced so many of my favorite authors, comedians, rock stars and TV shows. The UK almost seemed (to my naïve self ) to be a totally different, more civilized world. So it was that I decided to find someplace in Britain where I could work for food and lodging. In truth I only chose to ‘volunteer’ at the Mount Camphill Community, a school for young adults with special needs in the South-East of England, because it offered the best benefits. In addition to organic food and lovely surroundings it offers a weekly stipend of fifty pounds, weekend outings and ample time off.

When I arrived I was shocked at how religious the place was. Granted, this was partly my own fault for not looking into it well enough, but their website gives little indication of just how much their beliefs influence most everything they do. There are blessings before and after almost every meal, a strange service on Sundays, and songs and recitations almost every morning. I was berated for not participating in religious rituals and, from even the first meeting I had to sit through about it, the message was clearly join in or leave. In my last meeting I was apologized to for having been given a false impression, and offered airfare home. I declined at first, but subsequently accepted.
When I was encouraged to leave, I was told that even if I sang and recited and smiled during services, ostensibly participating to a full extent, it would still not work because I would be “disapproving on the inside,” whether I knew it or not. There is simply no place for an atheist there. This means that irreligious Brits are funding an institution which would discriminate against them. I was told by the head gardener, whom I worked under, that almost all of their money comes from the government. He also said that I was a cause of concern for some of the “senior co-workers.” The whole place was terribly gossipy and quite often I worried about my words being repeated.
For all these reasons and more I would never want to work at a Camphill Community ever again. The most important reason, however, is that there is no real escape from the alienation of modern life. We literally cannot retreat, and we divert our attention with drugs and other distractions at our peril. The things that give us solace now merely console us to our conditions. They cannot change the fact that, almost a century after Bertrand Russell penned the words, it is still true that “almost all who work have no say in the direction of their work; throughout the hours of labour they are mere machines carrying out the will of a master.” Since then global economic inequality has gotten hideously worse.

“… irreligious Brits are funding
an institution which would
discriminate against them”

Believe it or not

Phil

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1st October 2007

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This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 20, Issue 4, from 2007.

It was a good start when I contacted Mark Vernon to ask for an interview and he suggested we meet in a bookshop. Not a specialist or academic bookshop, but Books etc on Victoria Street. I had a feeling I would be dealing with someone fairly down to earth, and I was right. In the event the lunchtime meeting was rescheduled to a café, the nature of life being such that sometimes you have to feed your face before you can feed your soul. We sat surrounded by civil servants and House of Fraser employees, and I tried to get a feeling for what Vernon means when he describes himself as an agnostic, and whether the headline-grabbing fact that he is an ex-vicar contributes to that meaning. Vernon is one of the breed of philosophers who claims that philosophy is to be lived, not merely thought about. How then can agnosticism, which seems to rely so heavily on the idea of “not”, be an active philosophy for life? Vernon attempts to put the case in his book, and he tried to explain it to me over coffee. I need to come clean here. I am not a philosopher, or a theologian. I am a psychology undergraduate having just completed my first year at Goldsmiths College. What this means is that he had to start at first principles and explain his ideas to an absolute beginner. In my defence, I had already read his book Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, and had found it truly absorbing and possibly life-changing.

The first thing that struck me about Mark Vernon in person was that he was much younger than I expected him to be, and somehow much hipper. His book had brought the image of a wise old man to mind. In truth, I was expecting a cross between Rowan Williams and Gandalf. Our expectations are often shaped by stereotypes, and the tag “ex-vicar” had led me to expect, well, I’m not sure exactly what, but not the man with the funky glasses and linen jacket who sat in front of me.

It is fair to say that his book on agnosticism has attracted a healthy amount of attention, possibly stemming from the same place as my own curiosity about Vernon’s previous life in the church. Who could not be intrigued to read a celebration of agnosticism written by an ex-cleric, who reached his version of not knowing via a spell as an atheist? Possibly much of the attention is to do with the fact that there have been no serious works on agnosticism since TH Huxley first coined the phrase – an obvious gap in the publishing market. Or possibly it is that sometimes the time is right for a book, and Vernon has hit on something which is fundamental to living through the ages, and particularly now. Religions of all types are centre stage at the moment, although our awareness seems to be mostly of their more fundamentalist aspects and leaders. In retaliation, scientists and atheism have taken an increasingly polarised stance. The God Delusion (Dawkins, 2006) has sold over 200,000 in hardback in the UK alone, and you can buy it at Tescos next to the Halal meat and the Matzo crackers. Some have coined the word Scientism to describe the use of science to explain how the world works, almost as though it has become a religion it itself. Perhaps surrounded by all this dogma, and all these people who are so convinced that they are right, Vernon’s brand of uncertainty has tapped into something important and of the moment. BBC Online picked up his ideas immediately, and on the day they featured an interview with him, that interview received 250,000 hits, more than any other subject.

The UK has a long tradition of agnosticism, but the use of the word agnostic to describe the UK experience implies a wishy-washiness, and a lack of willingness to engage with the bigger questions. Vernon’s approach to the subject is anything but wishy-washy, possibly because of his claim not only to think about agnosticism, but to live it. If agnosticism is what gives his life meaning, then it must be an active, dynamic form of agnosticism. Does such a thing exist? Vernon thinks so.

The statement “I am an agnostic” can be interpreted in many ways. It can simply mean “I don’t know”. It can mean “I don’t know, but I will assume that no god exists, and live my life to that effect”, or the opposite “I don’t know but will lead my life assuming god does exist.” One suspects that the Anglican church has more than its fair share of this type of agnostic, and possibly Roman Catholicism too. As Dermott says to Father Ted in the eponymous sitcom, “to be sure Ted, you don’t believe in all that rubbish, do you?” Agnosticism can also mean “I can not give an opinion because there is not enough evidence one way or the other right now, although that might change”, or, “I can not give an opinion because there is not enough evidence one way or the other right now, and that will never change”. It can even mean that god does exist, but we do not know anything about god. It’s a complicated business, describing yourself as an agnostic, and I wanted to know where on this spectrum Vernon fitted in. He is what he calls a Christian agnostic, a concept somewhat different to Graham Greene’s description of himself as a Catholic Agnostic (which seems to me from Greene’s writing to be very little to do with having a faith and rather a lot to do with guilt). Rather, Vernon’s agnosticism comes from a place of not knowing, but from a place which is religiously inclined. The history of agnosticism is full of those who have felt the same way. Socrates’ original quest began because of the Oracle at Delphi. St Augustine was just one of the many medieval Christians searching for comprehension. In contemporary times, despite the seeming increase in fundamentalism, for many, religion is not so clear cut. Thus, as Vernon himself points out, to be Jewish and an atheist is not necessarily a contradiction, and he describes friends of his living in the East as Zen Agnostics (although expressing caution over the use of the word Zen, which has become a Westernised vox-pop).

Vernon’s whole premise is that we can not know the meaning of life, but the enquiry may in itself be meaning enough. Inevitably the popularity of Vernon’s book draws comparisons with Dawkins, but there are few similarities in either subject matter or tone. Vernon’s book, like Vernon the man, is more respectful, gentler, more preoccupied with asking questions than showing us that he has all the answers.

When a book describes a way of life, part of the way it informs is to tell you something of the life of the author, and Vernon’s book weaves his personal story into his philosophical approach, describing what it was like to leave the church, and touching upon the death of his mother. Vernon himself pointed out to me that philosophy and biography are two sides of the same coin – both describe how to live. Over the past 100 years or so he believes that philosophy has moved away from the Kirkegaardian idea that what is true must be true for you. In a world where we are constantly looking for certainty, Vernon describes his own truth thus: “truth for me is a bad thing”. But if you don’t have truth, what do you replace it with? That is Vernon’s point exactly. You replace it with not knowing, and the not knowing becomes the truth.

As the conversation with Vernon progressed, he described a little of what it was that made him reject his religious calling. In the Bible, John tells us “and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. Clearly John et al’s version of the truth did not set Vernon free, and on leaving the church he became an atheist with the zeal of the newly-converted. After a short spell as a card-carrying sceptic, he rejected atheism too, and began to explore the alternative of agnosticism. He has been an agnostic for many years now, although the tradition of Christianity continues to inform and shape his ideas. One of his favourite books is The Name of the Rose, and he says he would have liked to have been alive in those times. Had he been, he wonders if perhaps he would have stayed in the church, which then seemed to allow much more room for enquiry. The twenty-first century does not seem to provide an institution which allows for the same questioning. His turning point and embracing of agnosticism came with a revelation that the important thing is how you live, not what you believe. Having realised that religion could not provide him with a belief system, he rapidly worked out that science could not either. Science for him can not be the be-all-and-end-all, although he seems to feel at home with the cosmologists, because they too ask the big metaphysical and physical questions. We can describe stuff like light and gravity, but we can’t explain it, and that is what Vernon embraces. Whereas Dawkins would say we can’t yet explain it, Vernon questions whether science really can ever answer these questions, or whether we might have to consider something else. Science for Vernon reduces his sense of wonder, whereas cosmology allows him to keep it. He describes being in a thunderstorm – sure, you know what is happening and can explain it all on a physical level, so why do you still feel so in awe of nature, its power and enormity?

So if the big question is not what you believe but how you live, how is agnosticism a way of life? How does Vernon live? As I drink coffee and he eats lunch, he makes some bold statements, such as “we’re obsessed with relativism”, and “it’s dehumanising to deny uncertainty”. If Vernon’s quest starts with Socrates’ quest, and he is advocating a Socratic way of life, how does that translate into how he lives today? Clearly, he is constantly looking for more enquiry, and his daily grapple with the unknown is what gives him meaning. He wants to popularise his thoughts, but more importantly, to popularise the questions behind them, raise the stakes, and put the issues centre stage. I asked what he wanted to achieve with Science, Religion and The Meaning of Life. He replied that he wants agnostics to stand up and be counted, and believes that to be an agnostic is just about as close as you can get to what it is to be human. He wants to show that agnosticism can be weighty, serious, and a choice in its own right, not just a flight from two evils. The book is aimed at agnostics, but also to provoke debate with scientists and religious leaders. Michael Shermer recommends “this work be read by sceptics and believers alike” – praise indeed. If his aim is to get us thinking, it seems that he is starting to do just that. A look at his website reveals questions, questions and more questions, forcing us to engage with his ideas, and, to some extent, with him the man. The site gets 1500 hits a day, a measure which he is rightly proud of. As well as his philosophy, his books and his teaching, he is a jobbing journalist, writing for the Guardian, the FT, and Management Today, amongst others. He is a man who wants his ideas to be listened to, and has found several forums for his voice.

We are ready for popular science, popular history. Are we ready for popular philosophy? Vernon certainly thinks so. Agnosticism is only one part of what Vernon “does”. His other books and www.markvernon.com cover topics as diverse as friendship and business, but written from a philosophical perspective. His new book, What Not to Say (due out in October/November 2007 at the same time as the paperback of Science, Religion, and the Meaning of Life), applies philosophy to the situations we are all continually faced with when we just do not know what to say. The allusion on the title is intentional – Vernon told me that the publishers of this book, Orion, also publish What Not To Wear. Could Vernon be the Trinny and Susannah of popular philosophy? In his choice of subjects he could certainly lay claim to be more populist than other popular philosophers such as Alain de Botton. De Botton may choose more concrete subjects, but Vernon’s prose makes the abstract tangible. There is no dumbing down, just a love of reading and grasp of his subjects which shine out from his books, his website, his journalism and his conversation. Nowhere is this more evident than in his account of agnosticism.

Vernon wanted to call the book Between Beasts and Angels. His academic publisher wanted to call it Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life. Being a former vicar, maybe he turned the other cheek, or perhaps being a doctor of philosophy, he took a philosophical approach and went with his publisher’s suggestion. Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life hit the shelves with a bang, the title suggesting a certain amount of irony, and perhaps a (conscious or otherwise) reference to the late great Douglas Adams. Maybe Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life was a good title after all. There may be more meaning in Vernon’s version of agnosticism than in either science or religion. To paraphrase a recent letter to the Times, whereas atheists are committed, Catholics and Muslims are devout, and Jews are orthodox, agnostics are passionate. Vernon is passionate about his agnosticism, and he is passionate about bringing the debate to centre stage. Whatever your own personal views, the questions Vernon asks are ones we should all be asking, even if the conclusions we draw are different. For myself, all I can say is how refreshing it is to talk “religion” of sorts with someone so measured, so moderate and so engaging. Vernon is an ambassador for agnosticism at a time when perhaps we need one. I think. Although I may be wrong.

Sexual Ethics

Philosophy

Phil

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23rd July 2007

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Volume 20 Number 3, Autumn 2007

Philosopher’s Corner

Julian Baggini

SEXUAL ETHICS seems such a quaint old subject.
Such has been the success of the almost complete purge of sex from the arena of serious, secular ethical debate that when someone does raise the topic, we immediately suspect (usually correctly) that that person has some conservative or religious axe to grind.

Though the details may be subject to debate, the story of how sexual ethics has been marginalised has been well-rehearsed. Sex has been frowned upon outside of the family in so many cultures for so many years for several reasons. Unwanted pregnancy and the spread of venereal disease are the two most obvious. Societies have a habit of erecting taboos around behaviour which harms the group and it is remarkable how many cultures have seen the establishing of long-term pair bonds as a force for social cohesion. There are also theological reasons. Religions differ, but all the major ones agree that sex is a gift from god for use only within specially sanctioned relationships. Even if these religious reasons are no more than ritualised formalisations of the more fundamental social reasons, they have come to have a force all of their own.
If you had asked anyone one hundred years ago why they should not have sex with whomsoever they wanted, these reasons would have seemed to be ample. No longer. The religious reasons no longer hold for most people, simply because most people have ceased to believe the traditional tenets of the major faiths. Pregnancy and disease have both become less of a threat with the use of contraceptives, abortion and condoms, even if these risks are higher than many seem to allow for.
There is still the question of whether the family is vital to society or not, but this only touches on sexual ethics tangentially. An extended pre-marital life still gives people many years to indulge in free love without harming the as yet non-existent family unit.
Hence many believe we now appear to have no good reason not to indulge our lusts as much as opportunity and desire allow. And there’s also a positive incentive to do so. It has entered folk psychology that ‘repression’ is a bad thing. The accusation of repression has become one of the easiest ways of dismissing an argument without recourse to rational debate. So if repression is bad and unhealthy, expression of our sexuality becomes vitally important.
But does this mean sex is no longer an important ethical issue? I don’t think so. We have become used to thinking about ethics in general, and sexual activity in particular, in terms of a particular form of morality, namely a code of conduct setting our behaviour which is or is not acceptable, desirable or required. There are rules which we ought to live by and breaking the rules is, well, immoral.
The problem here is that for such a moral system to ave any force, there must be both a respected source for the code and a set of sanctions to ensure it is followed.
In the language of the law, that means we need a legislator and an empowered judiciary. When religion was seen as the source of morality, this was no problem. God was both law-giver and law-enforcer (even though he usually postponed punishment until the afterlife). Now when we are at the stage when even many of those who believe in a god do not see either the church or any of the sacred texts as reliable sources, there is no longer any acknowledged moral legislature. Hence, in Sartre’s terminology, we have been “abandoned”.
So have we reached the end of morality? If by morality we mean that kind of authority-rooted, rule system described above, then we quite possibly have. But that doesn’t mean we’ve reached the end of ethics. Ethics-asmorality is almost certainly the most commonly held view of ethics in society in general, but it is not the only one, as any philosophy undergraduate will tell you. In fact, the major alternative is older than even morality. Pick up a treatise on ethics by one of the great Ancient Greeks and you’ll be struck by how little “morality” in the above sense they contain. What they are repeatedly concerned with is what is required to live the good life, a life that goes well. Friends, health, honour and integrity all go up to make a life go well and so are good. Poverty, isolation and disenfranchisement all help a life go badly and so are bad. The poor person is not bad in the moral sense of the word, but it is almost always the case that the poor person is living a life which is going significantly less well than it could be.
In this context it should be obvious that sex is a deeply ethical issue, for how we conduct our private lives has a great bearing not only on how well our lives go, but sometimes how well the lives of our partners do too. But in this kind of sexual ethics, rather than draw up a list of permitted and prohibited practices and positions, we need to think about how we treat other people and our own desires. Sexual ethics has not gone away, it’s just become more complicated and nuanced. It is not so much about what we do, but how we do it.

Julian Baggini is editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine and author of The Pig that Wants to be Eaten and 99 Other Thought Experiments, Making Sense: Philosophy Behind the Headlines and The Meaning of Life. Julian’s latest book is Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind.

Haunting the Bereaved: a skeptical analysis of Colin Fry’s “6ixth Sense” TV show

Mark Williams

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21st July 2007

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Haunting the Bereaved: a skeptical analysis of Colin Fry’s “6ixth Sense” TV show

This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 20, Issue 3, from 2007

As the regular reader and proud sceptical disciple (or the quietly and perhaps appropriately embarrassed believer) that you must necessarily be to clutch this fine journalistic artefact firmly alongside today’s copy of the Daily Mail, I shall presume you are already aware of the existence of cold reading.

For the keen but uninitiated few, cold reading can essentially be described as the art of attempting linguistically, behaviourally, and often rectally, to relay to people, personal information which is derived from observation, rationality and inductive reasoning. It is a technique by which an individual can appear to know more about another than they feasibly should. Formed from many psychologically allied fields, cold reading provides a highly sophisticated and informed analysis when performed well, but in consideration of its use by deliberately deceptive and fraudulent psychic or mediumistic performers, I make no apologies for sphincter level tenure in this article.

That stated, the particular episode of apparent cold reading which inspired this articulate rant was a comparatively innocuous, if blatant, affair on the behalf of Mr Colin Fry, resident psychic and lone presenter of FTN channel’s 6ixth Sense programme. I must admit to being newly initiated to this specific twice nightly, thirty-minute delight, but the seductive title sequence perhaps suggested that Mr Fry would gesture enthusiastically towards audience members, whilst simultaneously relaying important messages from the ‘other world’. What actually resulted was a marvel seemingly best described as a Q&A session – our genial host asking direct questions of audience members and subsequently showing paranormal ‘insight’.

Now I realise that, although the fundamentals of cold reading may come as no surprise to many readers, this claim may be more easily dismissed quickly by the perhaps more open-minded and less delightfully critical reader. With that in mind, I offer the following analysis based on the first reading of the programme broadcast on Tuesday 7th November 2006:

The reading itself lasted for a total of exactly three and a half minutes from introduction to closing. During this period, eight topics were mentioned by the host. Within these, four items were initial ‘hits’. That is to say that four comments addressing those eight topics superficially made immediate sense to the participants. Conversely, only one item was a ‘miss’. That is to say that only one comment was not verified as true by the participants.

Now the above might lend credence to Fry’s abilities either as a master cold reader or as a genuine psychic. That is, of course, presuming his other seven direct questions and two completely unverifiable predictions about the future are ignored. I intend to consider these future predictions first.

Seeing into the future

To me, there lies an important distinction in apparent psychic readings, illustrated quite nicely by a sign currently advertising a shop in the centre of Ealing, London. The sign in question simply reads “Psychic, healer, palmist”. If such abilities are presumed genuine, then it may be entirely plausible that the paranormally gifted individual working inside this shop can relay important information from your dearly departed grandmother, before transmitting palliative energies to cure your terribly sensitive, irritable bowel. However you regard these abilities, each can hypothetically exist within its own right. We are expected to believe that such abilities do not necessarily exist exclusively: one could potentially possess a single ability in mediumship or healing, but one could also be blessed with all of these extraordinary abilities.

The distinction, however, is that Seignior Fry not only seems blessed with the ability to deliver messages from the dead, but also to deliver messages about the future. For me, palmist abilities or messages from the dead require a certain stretch of the imagination, but specific predictions about the future require enlightenment on an entirely different level. The hypothetical psychically gifted healer who dabbles in palmistry may possess extrasensory channels of communication but she certainly cannot divine your future. She may make ‘informed’ guesses about major events in your life through the consideration of lines in your skin, but she does not talk about specifics. In this sense, the palmist cannot divine the future.

Conversely, Fry, as a modest psychic medium speaking about the sizeable financial difficulties of one audience member, is able to state with absolute conviction that “You can sort it out by the sixteenth of December”. It is uncertain whether this is his own insight or that derived from the deceased grandfather of the audience member with whom he has contact, but at no point to my knowledge has Fry ever claimed to have personal insight into the future. As such, I am presuming that he must gain future insight as a sole result of his supposed communication with the dead. So, consider this: what aspect of death permits one’s least favourite, late, great aunt to have personal insight into your future?

If the process of dying is not absolute and somehow empowers people with visionary qualities, it would have major scientific and philosophical implications. If the dead could accurately foretell our future, new consideration must be given to the debate about free will and determinism. Would our lives be determined? Would we be under the influence of a higher power? Or is it perhaps a little more logical to apply the principle of Occam’s Razor to this scenario and conclude that Colin Fry, whilst conducting a psychic reading, might have been making statements for dramatic effect? Fry’s participant simply heard what she wanted to, what she expected to hear.

Direct questions

Having briefly considered visionary qualities, it is also important to consider the role of direct questioning in psychic readings. Fry claims possession of clairsentient abilities: a form of ESP which permits psychic insight primarily through personal ‘feeling’. Given that clairsentience acts through emotional means rather than the relaying of directly verbalised messages, the psychic must bring their own interpretation to the ideas and feelings they experience. As such, some direct questions asking to clarify or confirm assertions might be justifiable. What did seem rather difficult to psychically rationalise, however, were any reasons why around half of all the statements made by Fry were direct questions.

A total of seven questions were asked of the audience members during the reading; five of these being in the first 40 seconds, and the final two following shortly after. Essentially, for the first 40 seconds of the reading, Fry did nothing but sensitively interrogate one lady about her family, potential bereavements and present company, at an impressive average rate of one question every eight seconds. After taking a moment to relax and breathe, he then focused attention on her friend.

Addressing this second volunteer, Fry first asked to see her hands. He specifically asked if the ring on the fourth finger of her middle-aged right hand, was her late mother’s wedding ring. He continued by affirming quietly to himself that “Mum’s in the spirit”, quickly suffixed by the justification to his volunteer that “she said ‘get her to show you…. hands”. Now these may indeed be the overly-analytical musings of a sceptic who should know better, but what intrigues me is why the exchange progressed in this form. Fry could have stated from the outset that he believed the ‘spirit contact’ was possibly the late mother of this individual, and he felt that she was reporting her daughter was wearing her wedding ring.

Colin Fry - a thin white man with short grey hair wearing a grey pinstriped suit and an orange tie

Instead, he decided to pose short questions to the lady, drawing conclusions and continuing only after affirmative responses had been given. Perhaps this is indicative of an attempt to make the reading more sensational by gaining more affirmative responses. Perhaps it could be indicative of mere fishing.

Unfortunately, I cannot prove a negative in this – I cannot prove definitively that Fry was not using a form of mediumistic sense to derive information from the dead mother of a volunteer, following fairly specific questions. What I can state quite confidently is that his method of revealing this information appeared extremely suspicious to me, as a viewer who is expected to subscribe to the proceedings.

General statements

By this stage, after the establishment of a series of affirmative responses, audience and volunteer alike are assumedly convinced of Fry’s penchant for paranormal prophecy and are likely to no longer search for confirmatory evidence for this. As such, Fry is permitted to make greater numbers of general statements and entirely unfounded claims – something which is seemingly exploited to maximum effect, considering the following:

I have to say I don’t know what they’re talking about here, but it’s meant to be something that’s like [sic] personal to you, that you’re meant to understand. Sometimes you have to accept, you’re flogging a dead horse. Sometimes you just have to accept ‘back out and start again with something or somewhere else.’ Do you understand? You can.

These three sentences are a very good illustration of standard ‘Barnum statements’. Named after Phineas T Barnum, these statements are described in Ian Rowland’s The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading as those which “a majority of people, if asked, will consider to be a reasonably accurate description of themselves”. Although the most typical Barnum statements refer to personality or character traits, they can also easily address events or states of mind, as seen here.

First is a disclaimer that the medium cannot know the nature of this reference specifically. It provides a valid reason not to elaborate on the Barnum statements. In Fry’s case, this is followed by a statement that, to be fair, most people who have experienced bereavement would be able to understand. Few individuals, I suspect, would progress with their life and not ruminate over their deceased loved one or those things they personally regretted not doing or saying. “Flogging a dead horse” seems a very general description of these issues. In fact, upon watching the reading, one of the esteemed co-editors of this lovely magazine made some impromptu quip about eBay, and the unusual equine interests of the lady, if she was indeed literally ‘flogging’ a dead horse.

Joking aside, ‘flogging a dead horse’ and ‘starting again’ are perhaps two of the most generalised concepts which could be applied to someone in the grieving process. It says nothing of the individual, stating nothing specifically as fact. Similarly, ‘Jacques statements’ which Rowland describes as being “derived from common rites of passage, widely-recognised life patterns, and typical problems which we all encounter”, also provide an explanation of the seemingly positive interpretation of such phrases. The power of these statements becomes obvious from the volunteer’s post-reading interview in which she talks about the “bereavement problems” to which she believed she heard Fry refer. In reality, Fry made no such reference in the broadcast show.

Instead, it is reasonable to assume the volunteer had placed her own significance and insight onto the very generic and non-specific statement made by Fry, and consequently remembered the exchange to be far more accurate than it truly was.

Again, in short, I cannot disprove the use of any psychic sense in the reading, all I offer is a pattern which conforms to the models within cold reading. I echo the same question from above – was the participant only hearing what she expected to? Their own silly faults?

No venture into the possibilities of fraudulent mediumship and cold reading would be complete without mentioning a contribution from Derren Brown, the “devil bearded mind fiddler” as dubbed by hedonistic Zoo magazine. He partly addresses the issues of expectation and the need for belief, writing in Tricks of the Mind, his latest entertaining excursion into psychic-bashing. Writing in his typically acerbic mode, he states

Most people don’t take psychics seriously, and may find all this self-evident. But some poor souls take psychics very seriously indeed, and many become reliant on them for advice or a sense of well-being. Perhaps that’s their own silly fault. Quite possibly.

In many senses, Brown may be correct. Some individuals, I am sure, do tend to hold the psychic world in rather high regard and apply concerningly low critical analysis to its claims. Some individuals may become reliant on psychics in their personal quest to continue communication with loved ones. If it is genuinely possible to live in some form after corporeal death, and if it were genuinely possible to communicate with these entities, then advice or a sense of well-being from this, would be perfectly ‘normal’. In these statements, Brown is absolutely correct. The point I dispute, is that it is “their own silly fault”.

The fanatical faith many individuals unreservedly place in psychics and the associated industry undoubtedly aids the perpetuation of personal exploitation, but to a field which trades in belief, this is hardly surprising. In return for a suspension of disbelief, clients receive reassurance, comfort and guidance. This does not mean, however, that the client is at fault.

In bereavement, individuals have a need for positive belief. There is little point in visiting a psychic or a medium whom you personally believe to be fraudulent. It is the responsibility of the psychic or medium concerned to respond sensitively and appropriately to their client. If psychic abilities do exist then, morally, the practitioner should not use that ability for detriment or disproportionate personal gain. Importantly, if no psychic abilities exist in practice, this still remains true.

Society has few moral issues with the use of placebo therapies when effective, and presuming they have a similar positive outcome [editors note: placebos are probably not as effective as people assume!], I see no reason why the same cannot hold true for psychic readings. Negative outcomes such as addiction can occur with medicinal treatments, talking therapies, and likewise with psychic readings. Controversy exists regarding the nature of action of many medicinal therapies, clinical hypnosis, and again, with psychic readings. These criticisms, therefore, are definitely not exclusive to psychics, though sceptics still tend to regard psychics with a special variety of loathing.

Disclaimers

Aside from the provision of life guidance, my personal issue with the psychic industry lies within the exploitation on which much of it would appear to be based. Fry, to use an apparently very pertinent example, owns a Swedish establishment named the “International College of Spiritual Science”. Marketed as “Colin’s College”, it claims to teach the techniques and methods needed to become a psychic practitioner. If Fry truly were psychically gifted, what practical aspect of their talent can actually be passed on to others? Magicians of all varieties have been sharing secrets and practical techniques for centuries. Psychics, by their very nature, simply cannot – there is nothing to pass on to the general public, there is only a personal ability! Instead, it would seem to me that the college provides an opportunity centred more in financial and media gain than that of any educational sense.

The most revealing factor in this, and perhaps largest proverbial nail in the coffin of psychic exhibitionism, is provided by the Fraudulent Mediums Act of 1951. Introduced to repeal previous legislation aptly entitled as the ‘Witchcraft Act’ of 1735, the Fraudulent Mediums Act is, in essence, the most potent legal position which counters the exhibition of fraudulent psychic ability for personal or institutional benefit.

Aside from protecting individuals in an interpersonal context, the act also ensures that psychic displays, televised or otherwise, cannot deceive audiences. It stipulates that broadcast programmes must not make untruthful claims and, as such, cannot lead viewers to the belief that a performer is psychic, when in truth they are not. The most simple and effective method to ensure this does not occur, is to include a written or a verbal disclaimer to prefix or suffix the broadcast.

Conveniently, 6ixth Sense with Colin Fry happens to do just that. Appearing for a total of eight seconds – which coincidentally is not long enough to read it in its entirety – at the end of the final credit sequence, this disclaimer states the following:

No information concerning any participant in the 6ixth Sense was passed onto Colin Fry prior to filming. To this end, we have relied upon information provided by Colin Fry and third parties who have expressed their own personal opinions, which do not represent the views or responsibility of the producers. 6ixth Sense is an entertainment programme and the content should not be construed as advice, counselling, suggestions or fact.

I am personally divided between which aspect of the very specific and considered phrasing appeals to me most, so I will address them briefly in order of statement.

Firstly, “No information concerning any participant in the 6ixth Sense was passed onto Colin Fry prior to filming.” This means precisely what it says – no information was passed to Colin Fry prior to filming. This does not mean that Fry could not have conducted his own pre-show investigations. Similarly, information could have been provided to Fry during filming with-out breaking this disclaimer. Presumably there are pauses in filming during which this could feasibly occur, however, there are also a multitude of very deceptive techniques which could covertly provide Fry with information in real-time.

Secondly, “we have relied upon information provided by Colin Fry and third parties”. My interest here lies within “third parties”. This ambiguous term could either refer to the participants and interviewees in the show, or perhaps any confederates potentially working alongside our host. As I say: perhaps.

Thirdly and finally, “6ixth Sense is an entertainment programme and the content should not be construed as advice, counselling, suggestions or fact.” Very simply, Fry is neither offering counselling nor advice, nor should he. To my knowledge, Fry is not a qualified therapist, so this statement is very well informed. It would seem though, that Fry does not offer his insight as fact either. Admittedly the process of supposedly relaying messages from the dead is not a direct one, and consequently messages may not be entirely factual. However, this is inherently obvious. Critically though, there is no qualification as to what proportion of Fry’s messages may be factual, simply meaning that none of what Fry claims has to actually be true.

To compound all of this, more recent programmes have been prefixed by a spoken disclaimer claiming that the origins and explanations of clairaudience and clairsentience are not agreed upon, and again claiming that the 6ixth Sense with Colin Fry is an entertainment programme.

So, whether Colin Fry accomplishes his televised readings through a psychic sense, cold reading, hot reading, creative editing, none of the above, or a combination of all of these techniques, I will tentatively admit to finding the programme entertaining, though perhaps for reasons other than those the producers intended. The views people express about these areas seem almost inconsequential against their overriding emotional expressions, and perhaps that is the point. The psychic industry thrives on emotion rather than cold rationality, and it probably will continue to do so. This is not to cast judgement on Fry or his abilities, but I hope that an increasing awareness of the existence of fraudulent techniques can foster greater critical analysis. Time will tell.

References

Brown, D. (2006). Tricks of the Mind. London: Transworld Publishers.
Rowland, I. (2001). Full Facts of Cold Reading, 2nd ed. London: Ian Rowland Limited.

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“… irreligious Brits are fundingan institution which woulddiscriminate against them”

Philosopher’s Corner

Seeing into the future

Direct questions

General statements

Disclaimers

References

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“… irreligious Brits are funding
an institution which would
discriminate against them”