"Nothing Better Than Death" is a comprehensive analysis of the near-death experiences profiled on my website at www.near-death.com. This book provides complete NDE testimonials, summaries of various NDEs, NDE research conclusions, a question and answer section, an analysis of NDEs and Christian doctrines, famous quotations about life and death, a NDE bibliography, book notes, a list of NDE resources on the Internet, and a list of NDE support groups associated with IANDS.org - the International Association for Near-Death Studies. -/- The (...) unusual title of this book, "Nothing Better Than Death," was inspired by NDE experiencer Dr. Dianne Morrissey who once said, "If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there's not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing." -/- Having read every NDE book I could get my hands on, I didn't want to create just another NDE book. My motivation was to give readers a large variety of information about NDEs challenging both the seasoned NDE enthusiast as well as the novice. This book gives readers the means to understand the NDE phenomenon from the perspective of a large number of some of the most profound NDEs ever documented. My hope is that you will enjoy this book, my labor of love, and that you will be truly blessed by the heavenly insights within it. (shrink)

Despite his elusiveness on important issues, there is much in Michael Oakeshott's educational vision that Richard Peters quite rightly wishes to endorse. The main aim of this essay is, however, to consider Peters' justifiable critique of three features of Oakeshott's work. These are the rigidity of his distinction between vocational and university education, the lack of clarity and accuracy in his philosophy of teaching and learning, especially the under-conceptualisation of the role of example in teaching, the over-emphasis on tradition in (...) moral and civic learning. (shrink)

Hegel endorsed proofs of the existence of God, and also believed God to be a person. Some of his interpreters ignore these apparently retrograde tendencies, shunning them in favor of the philosopher's more forward-looking contributions. Others embrace Hegel's religious thought, but attempt to recast his views as less reactionary than they appear to be. Robert Williams's latest monograph belongs to a third category: he argues that Hegel's positions in philosophical theology are central to his philosophy writ large. The book (...) is diligently researched, and marshals an impressive amount of textual evidence concerning Hegel's view of the proofs, his theory of personhood, and his views on religious community.Many of... (shrink)

This paper outlines Lewis’s favoured foundational account of linguistic representation, and outlines and briefly evaluates variations and modifications. Section 1 gives an opinionated exegesis of Lewis’ work on the foundations of reference—his interpretationism. I look at the way that the metaphysical distinction between natural and non-natural properties came to play a central role in his thinking about language. Lewis’s own deployment of this notion has implausible commitments, so in section 2 I consider variations and alternatives. Section 3 briefly considers a (...) buck-passing strategy involving fine-grained linguistic conventions. (shrink)

Permeability and geologic time are the primary controlling factors for the generation and dissipation of overpressures. With respect to increasing depth, pressure gradients within any layer may increase, decrease, or remain essentially constant. Pore pressure gradients also vary laterally as a response to changes in permeability, which do not always correspond to seismic or correlation surfaces. In some cases, pressure may not respond at all to the presence of a fault, indicating that the fault zone is permeable and that either (...) vertical or lateral fluid flow has allowed pressure to equilibrate across the fault zone. Some faults act as pressure barriers where an overpressured seal does not allow for fluid flow across the fault zone. Barostratigraphy objectively describes the present-day results of the subsurface processes that create overpressures and those that allow abnormal pressures to be maintained and dissipate. Additionally, barostratigraphy provides a formal method to better categorize pressure compartmentalization by providing a framework for the analysis of the stratigraphic nature of subsurface pressure compartments. It is a classification that systematically arranges and partitions subsurface units based on their inherent properties and pressure attributes. These units are identifiable based on observable criteria. They are correlatable, mappable, and useful in identifying the current pressure conditions in all or part of a basin. The prediction of pore pressure at proposed well locations can be optimized by the use of barostratigraphy, which aids in the analysis of subsurface pressure magnitudes and variation, and in basin modeling. Additionally, an understanding of the hydrocarbon distribution in an area is enhanced, as is the analysis of seismic velocities and their impact on imaging due to the close relationship between velocity and effective stress. (shrink)

The revival of analytic metaphysics in the latter half of the twentieth century is typically understood as a consequence of the critiques of logical positivism, Quine’s naturalization of ontology, Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, clarifications of modal notions in logic, and the theoretical exploitation of possible worlds. However, this explanation overlooks the work of metaphysicians at the height of positivism and linguisticism that affected metaphysics of the late twentieth century. Donald C. Williams is one such philosopher. In this paper I (...) explain how Williams’s fundamental ontology and philosophy of time influenced in part the early formation of David Lewis’s metaphysics. Thus, Williams played an important role in the revival of analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

Written behavioral agreements came into clinical use more than 40 years ago, originally for the purpose of contracting for safety among patients expressing suicidal ideation. The first identified reference to the concept of contracting with suicidal patients appeared in the psychiatric literature in 1967. They have gained substantial popularity since then and are commonly employed across diverse medical settings, most notably in psychiatry, pain medicine, and addiction medicine.Because of the epidemic of harm from prescription medications, especially opiates, the popularity of (...) WBAs may be increasing. In the area of pain.. (shrink)

As a patient approaches death, family members often are asked about their loved one’s preferences regarding treatment at the end of life. Advance care directives may provide information for families and surrogate decision makers; however, less than one-third of Americans have completed such documents. As the U.S. population continues to age, many surrogate decision makers likely will rely on other means to discern or interpret a loved one’s preferences. While many surrogates indicate that they have some knowledge of their loved (...) one’s preferences, how surrogates obtain such knowledge is not well understood. Additionally, although research indicates that the emotional burden of end-of-life decision making is diminished when surrogates have knowledge that a loved one’s preferences are honored, it remains unclear how surrogates come to know these preferences were carried out. The current study examined the ways that next of kin knew veterans’ end-of-life preferences, and their ways of knowing whether those preferences were honored in Veteran Affairs Medical Center inpatient settings. (shrink)

Researchers have long debated the extent to which an individual’s skin tone influences their perceived race. Brooks and Gwinn demonstrated that the race of surrounding faces can affect the perceived skin tone of a central target face without changing perceived racial typicality, suggesting that skin lightness makes a small contribution to judgments of race compared to morphological cues. However, the lack of a consistent light source may have undermined the reliability of skin tone cues, encouraging observers to rely disproportionately on (...) morphological cues instead. The current study addresses this concern by using 3D models of male faces with typically Black African or White European appearances that are illuminated by the same light source. Observers perceived target faces surrounded by White faces to have darker skin than those surrounded by Black faces, particularly for faces of intermediate lightness. However, when asked to judge racial typicality, a small assimilation effect was evident, with target faces perceived as more stereotypically White when surrounded by White than when surrounded by Black faces at intermediate levels of typicality. This evidence of assimilation effects for perceived racial typicality despite concurrent contrast effects on perceived skin lightness supports the previous conclusion that perceived skin lightness has little influence on judgments of racial typicality for racially ambiguous faces, even when lighting is consistent. (shrink)

In his account of our belief in the Causal Maxim Hume argued, among other things, that it is not absolutely necessary for any event to be caused. Harold Noonan attempts an objection to Hume’s argument: in showing (i) the absolute possibility for any event to exist without its actual cause, Hume would not thereby show (ii) the absolute possibility for any event to exist uncaused. For this objection to succeed, Noonan needs two further assumptions: first, that Hume indeed could not (...) move plausibly from (i) to (ii); second, that Hume needed to move from (i) to (ii) to show (ii). Both assumptions are false. (shrink)

While Kant does not address the problem of induction often attributed to Hume, he does, by way of a transcendental deduction of an a priori principle of reflecting empirical judgment, address a distinct problem Hume raises indirectly. This problem is that induction cannot be justified so long as it presupposes some empirical concept applying to or some empirical principle true of more than one object in nature, a presupposition neither determined by nor founded on reason. I draw on Hume’s positive (...) account of induction to motivate the following objection to Kant: in so far as induction can be justified, there is reason to doubt that it would be so in virtue of any a priori feature. (shrink)

Proponents of empirically supported treatment have argued that psychotherapists have an ethical obligation to make an EST the first choice in clinical practice. This paper challenges this idea. The EST program assumes a model of therapy as technology or applied science that poorly fits the reality of psychotherapeutic practice. The problems brought to therapy implicate fundamental questions regarding what constitutes a good life. A therapeutic response to such problems is not a technical means to change a circumscribed disorder, but an (...) engagement with the client that has relevance to broader moral concerns. Further, the picture of therapy as technology of change implicitly proposes views of a good life, while not acknowledging that it is doing so. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This paper describes novel tobacco control laws passed in New York City in 2017. These laws are designed to improve the city's strategy of using price to decrease tobacco consumption, and over time, change the city's landscape by making tobacco less accessible.

There remains much to be learned from searching exploration of the great authors who have meditated on education. Montaigne is one such thinker and this essay endeavors to draw together the strands of his pedagogy and to demonstrate how they gain purchase in the business of teaching and learning. The article also proposes to supplement his vision with practical examples from fiction and autobiography. Perhaps the most striking theme is the need to be able to decentre from the comfort zone (...) of acquired beliefs and convictions and the crucial role played by conversation in cultivating the intellectual and moral openness in order to do so. At the heart of Montaigne’s writing on education is what can be called a pedagogy of conversation. (shrink)