Image: Scott Brundage
-
The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
Read More »
In Eben Alexander's best-selling book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster), he recounts his near-death experience (NDE) during a meningitis-induced coma. When I first read that Alexander's heaven includes “a beautiful girl with high cheekbones and deep blue eyes” who offered him unconditional love, I thought, “Yeah, sure, dude. I've had that fantasy, too.” Yet when I met him on the set of Larry King's new streaming-live talk show on Hulu, I realized that he genuinely believes he went to heaven. Did he?
Not likely. First, Alexander claims that his “cortex was completely shut down” and that his “near-death experience ... took place not while [his] cortex was malfunctioning, but while it was simply off.” In King's green room, I asked him how, if his brain was really nonfunctional, he could have any memory of these experiences, given that memories are a product of neural activity? He responded that he believes the mind can exist separately from the brain. How, where, I inquired? That we don't yet know, he rejoined. The fact that mind and consciousness are not fully explained by natural forces, however, is not proof of the supernatural. In any case, there is a reason they are called near-death experiences: the people who have them are not actually dead.
Second, we now know of a number of factors that produce such fantastical hallucinations, which are masterfully explained by the great neurologist Oliver Sacks in his 2012 book Hallucinations (Knopf). For example, Swiss neuroscientist Olaf Blanke and his colleagues produced a “shadow person” in a patient by electrically stimulating her left temporoparietal junction. “When the woman was lying down,” Sacks reports, “a mild stimulation of this area gave her the impression that someone was behind her; a stronger stimulation allowed her to define the ‘someone’ as young but of indeterminate sex.”
Sacks recalls his experience treating 80 deeply parkinsonian postencephalitic patients (as seen in the 1990 film Awakenings, which starred Robin Williams in a role based on Sacks), and notes, “I found that perhaps a third of them had experienced visual hallucinations for years before l-dopa was introduced—hallucinations of a predominantly benign and sociable sort.” He speculates that “it might be related to their isolation and social deprivation, their longing for the world—an attempt to provide a virtual reality, a hallucinatory substitute for the real world which had been taken from them.”
Migraine headaches also produce hallucinations, which Sacks himself has experienced as a longtime sufferer, including a “shimmering light” that was “dazzlingly bright”: “It expanded, becoming an enormous arc stretching from the ground to the sky, with sharp, glittering, zigazgging borders and brilliant blue and orange colors.” Compare Sacks's experience with that of Alexander's trip to heaven, where he was “in a place of clouds. Big, puffy, pink-white ones that showed up sharply against the deep blue-black sky. Higher than the clouds—immeasurably higher—flocks of transparent, shimmering beings arced across the sky, leaving long, streamerlike lines behind them.”
In an article in the Atlantic last December, Sacks explains that the reason hallucinations seem so real “is that they deploy the very same systems in the brain that actual perceptions do. When one hallucinates voices, the auditory pathways are activated; when one hallucinates a face, the fusiform face area, normally used to perceive and identify faces in the environment, is stimulated.” Sacks concludes that “the one most plausible hypothesis in Dr. Alexander's case, then, is that his NDE occurred not during his coma, but as he was surfacing from the coma and his cortex was returning to full function. It is curious that he does not allow this obvious and natural explanation, but instead insists on a supernatural one.”
The reason people turn to supernatural explanations is that the mind abhors a vacuum of explanation. Because we do not yet have a fully natural explanation for mind and consciousness, people turn to supernatural explanations to fill the void. But what is more likely: That Alexander's NDE was a real trip to heaven and all these other hallucinations are the product of neural activity only? Or that all such experiences are mediated by the brain but seem real to each experiencer? To me, this evidence is proof of hallucination, not heaven.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
Comment on this article at ScientificAmerican.com/apr2013
This article was originally published with the title Proof of Hallucination.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
Rights & Permissions
See what we're tweeting about
117 Comments
Add CommentDeath is a thing of this world, yet you have something not of this world. As this world came into being from a point before time and space, so did we.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I read this article in the LA Times, I went a'Googling on NDEs, and found that they are common around the world, and.. the experience of each person is to see what they expect to be, in their culture. Christians see one, Hindus another, Muslims another. Mohammed says he visited the 7 levels of Paradise in his NDE. The vast variety of experiences really indicates they are physiological, and unique to the person, and not any indication of any paradise, or even a life after death.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere would need to be an enormous number of Heavens to suit all the beliefs about the hereafter.
The mammalian reproduction process wastes 50% of those conceived in natural abortions. Which would populate Heaven with zygotes and blastocysts equal in number to the saved with their robes and harps.
Just stopping and never experiencing anything at death is repugnant to many people I guess, so they grasp at the fantasy of a life after death.
It is also legitimate to consider the path of development of the human, and wonder at which point... Australopithecus, Erectus, Habilis, Sapiens, nature evolves the eternal soul, with that soul being unique to man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we consider personal individual experience to prove or disprove life after death? I have a schizophrenic daughter who constantly hears auditory hallucination. The voices that she hears are real to her. The conversations with those voices are real to her. They of course are not heard by anyone else. Therefore, how can someone’s near death experience proof or disprove the existence of life after death?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we want to evaluate the possibility of life after death we should ask other kinds of questions. Questions like what is intelligence and can it be created and if not where does it come from? With these questions in mind I have to consider the computer I am using to write my thoughts. I know that the hardware has a processor and memory and IO ports but it will not work without the software loaded in. The software can be hardwired in, or burned into ROM, or loaded into RAM. I also know that software has no physical presence. We cannot see it, hear it, feel it, taste it, touch it, or smell it -- but it must be present for the hardware to function. Software can be represented as patterns of 1’s and 0’s or text in a high order language, but the software is the logic and in these patterns and not the patterns themselves.
We know that we can create software and make it sophisticated enough to win a game of Chess against any human competitor. We can also create software that can make humans think they are communications with another human. However, the question remains -- is this intelligence? And if this is intelligence then it has a human creator. And it is added to the hardware and not created by the hardware.
So where does human intelligence come from? If I use the analogy of the computer then it cannot be created by the body, and it is separate from the body, and it must be added to the body for the body to function. The analogy also suggests that intelligence is created by someone and added to the body. The other possibility is that intelligence like matter simply exists. That of course leaves the question of how intelligence is loaded into a body.
I would like to take the position that intelligence cannot be created; that it exists like matter and like matter it cannot be destroyed. I cannot think of how to prove my hypothesis but I can think of how to disprove a portion of it.
According to an article in Time Magazine ( Feb 10, 2011) by Raymond Kurzweil, 2045 is the year man becomes immortal. He states the human brain will be successfully reverse-engineered by the mid 2020s and computers will be capable of human level intelligence. If this event occurs then my hypothesis is incorrect because humans would have created human intelligence. The computer would of course have to be self aware and capable of doing what humans can do.
However, such intelligence would still have to be added to the computer. The computer cannot not self generate intelligence. The intelligence would still have a creator.
Intelligence seems to develop with the organism, which indicates it is a natural function.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIntelligence is measurable, from those creatures with only stimulus/response to self-aware tool using such as humans and other animals and birds. And dolphins.
I've had several charming experiences outdoors with ravens that recognize me, and will show interest in me, and not anyone else. I couldn't walk in the community after approaching a juvenile raven as its parents went berserk. Every day after that the birds would create a ruckus when I'd walk. The neighbors noticed that I was only one being "attacked".. close passes by the birds, always from behind, and they're shear off if I turned to look.
Some of the local coyotes will beat feet as soon as a human comes into view, others will continue on their way, and one watched me and circled me when I was getting close to where I'd some pups respond to a passing siren on the highway. Actually laid down on a small bump to watch what I was going to do.. I decided leaving the area was more conducive to my health. :)
Our posture and potential built-in tools (hands and fingers) let the human animal develop a more versatile on-board controller, with the many missteps that mutations involve, but the successful changes breed true so here we are.
The only creator needed is the environment, and an organism to work with.
Our skeleton, flawed as it is, was developed millions of years ago in the sea. Adapted by the needs of terrestial locomotion, it worked for T.Rex, works for birds and us, so it doesn't get changed in any useful manner, although it could be.
It's the imagination that ginned up the need for a creator, who would "save" those who believed the stories.
If there were one life after death as promised, why, unlike our skeleton, one combination of bones being adequate, if not perfect, are there so many manifestations of life after death as experienced in the many NDEs?
Revelations around the world do not tap into the single truth, it appears. Where you are determines what the truth is for anyone, today. Tomorrow, it can and has changed.
I have a friend who has localized brain damage from a tumor. We were out in a boat one day with one other person, and my friend said that she was having a visual hallucination. I asked if she felt ok about it and she said yes, that it was very pleasant (fortunately all of hers are so far; she gets a bit of euphoria rather than fear). What are you seeing? I asked, and she said, I am floating above you (looking down on the boat). I thought this was interesting, in that many of the visions I've seen or heard reported in the press by people 'near death' are about floating up and looking down on the hospital room.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "shimmering" expanding arc cited by Oliver Sachs and, likely, by Eban Alexander is well known. It is not a figment of the imagination, but a result of a progressive spread of temporary inactivation of brain cells. Variously called "spreading depression," "scintillating scotoma," or "migraine aura," it often accompanies migraine but can occur by itself (as in my own case). In open-brain operations, it can be induced by depositing a drop of penicillin, perhaps related to the fact that it is more likely in those with penicillin allergy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt starts as a small flickering spot, which expands, usually in a C-shaped arc, until in disappears at the periphery of vision. The arc is made up of tiny flickering elements. It can be seen against a normally-lit background, where you can prove that it is a local depression of optic-area brain activity: just move your head/eyes until the arc is in front of a light source, and that will appear to go out.
It is certainly not a proof of heaven.
John F Moore
I get "eye jaggies" when my sugar gets low. Shimmering stuff starts low in the corners of the field of view and works its way to the center. A glass of OJ or a candy bar restores normal vision in about 10 minutes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe brain evolved as a way to connect the inner self to the world. We can infer that the inner self cannot experience senses without the brain. This seems to indicate that the inner self needs a brain to experience reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan the inner self on its death bed become cognizant without the brain? If so, why does it need the brain at all.
Yet, there are mysteries that are not so easily explained. What seems to be true is not necessarily true. Only future studies will uncover the actual truth.
Adding another layer of unknown doesn't help, when the layer hasn't been penetrated and shown to be real.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fundamental question is : How complex is the Universe? Depending on an answer explanation of various phenomena can be substantially different in future and in my opinion, surely not religious one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHallucinations are the most obvious reasons these causes. God would be very ridiculous person revealing his existence this way.
But logically, if the inner self can interact with reality without a brain, then the brain would not have evolved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis "inner self" apparently is manifested during an NDE, which are related to oxygen deprivation and its effects on awareness. Why make the situation any more complex than physiological and not unique other than the person's interpretation of it? One is "self aware", but hardly anything more convoluted than that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne might say that the inner self is the key to reality and the brain is the door or vice versus.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen Mr. Shermer states, "To me, this evidence is proof of hallucination, not heaven", he has forfeited whatever credibility he may have had as an objective observer guided by the scientific method. Because he chooses to only value evidence which supports his beliefs and rejects anything that is in contention with it and then proclaims "proof", he reveals that he is that which he pretends to expose: a biased individual who prioritizes a personal, comforting faith over objectivity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe above comments all concern special cases when hallucinations or scintillations can be experienced. But the standard near-death experience is of a brilliant white light that comes progressively nearer to envelope the subject with a sense of warmth and peace. I have discovered that this experience can be evoked at any time by anyone by a physiological meditative technique. This involves simply closing the eyes and raising them upward as if looking out through the forehead. If this posture is maintained for a number of minutes, the white light appears and envelopes the perceived bodily space as described. This is thus a neuro/physiological response that is built into our eye/brain system (somewhat like the experience of 'pins-and-needles' obtained by shutting off the blood supply to a limb), fully supporting Shermer's account of such experiences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen the desire for a supernatural explanation can't be supported by physiological evidence, opting for the supernatural instead is hardly good science, despite how firmly the desire may be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHold the phone. I thought this was a "scientific" magazine. Where is the controlled experiment to prove your theory? You fail to cite any evidence of correlation in time as to when Alexander's NDE occurred and when he was coming out of his coma. And you fail to acknowledge a key variable, which is not present in Alexander's coma situation, but which is presumably present in the cases of Sack's patients, your migraines, as well as Blanke's patients (without specifics I have to presume) - and that is that all but Alexander had their eyes open when experiencing 'hallucinations'. I think you have thrown out a good hypothesis here without supporting evidence gathered using the scientific method, instead choosing to cite sources that loosely controvert Alexander's claims. I would love to read about a true experiment with empirical results.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs your contention that a genuine NDE depends on the sufferer's position relative to the time in the experience, and therefore, some NDE's must be revelatory of the after-death existence? And as such, there is an after-death existence?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question is whether there is consciousness independent of brain function. Many people report consciousness, in many cases independently verified, while there is no brain activity. Rather than follow the reductionistic assumption that consciousness cannot exist apart from the brain, science should investigate consciousness itself. Indeed, near-death experience is not the only example of expanded consciousness. Personally, I have had such experiences. They are certainly not hallucinations. They are much more "real" than everyday consciousness. I also think that most people have such experiences at some time in their lives - that is, if they are not taught to marginalize them by religious institutions or reductionistic science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhatever a person is aware of comes from the senses which are transformed into images, sounds, sensations, tastes and smells by the brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf a person does not need his brain to be aware, the brain would not have evolved and we would be aware without physical help.
This is not to say there is or there isn't a metaphysical self. The source of the inner self is unknown although many people theorize more than they can deduce from the sketchy evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the (metaphysical?) self is bound to the brain for information. To get information without the brain is like a frog hopping without legs.
This is not to say there is or there isn't a metaphysical self. The source of the inner self is unknown although many people theorize more than they can deduce from the sketchy evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut the (metaphysical?) self is bound to the brain for information. To get information without the brain is like a frog hopping without legs.
If these NDEs are examples of the "expanded consciousness".. fluffy clouds, cute bunnies, 72 virgins...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisinvestigating that is something a paranormalist with lots of spare time might look at.
All theories of the mind are based on first person experience with a person's own mind. Trying to take a third party perspective of other people's minds cannot be done empirically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne must take on faith that some people have experienced NDE's. But then the explanation of NDE's cannot be scientifically studied by examining the mind or the soul of the observer.
Just to clarify: If I didn't have a mind myself, other people's minds would be paranormal. Since I do have a mind, other people's minds are metaphysical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, yes, an empirical experience is difficult to investigate, but, similar experiences with other encounters with reality can be evaluated... Hammer on thumb nail, the color purple, people's experiences tend to have a simple common description.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese NDEs vary all over the world, and reflect the person's expectations of what they have been told in their culture. As multiple places for the eternal substance of a person is less than sensible, it is proper to place the experience as totally unique to the individual, and indicative of nothing external to the individual. And it puts the kibosh on the idea of anything surviving death.
The most troubling point is what is says about medicine if a neurosurgeon can be so clueless about how the brain actually works. And I don't think it's an exception; as an otologist, I know how many of my colleagues are pretty ignorant about central auditory processing, or how exactly a cochlear implant works. But then, patients don't care either, most of my cochlear implant patients couldn't care less about how the gadget they have inside their heads produces hearing, so I guess a neurosurgeon's patients wouldn't care if they are being operated on by someone that basically knows the anatomy of the stuff and not how it works.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour premise is wrong in that intelligence is an emergent property of the brain's function, and it would be an emergent property of the computer's function. It does not have to be "added"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe existence of computer intelligence makes me wonder if awareness and sensations have any value at all. The human experience might be overpowered by super intelligent computers. What would suffer other than previously intelligent beings?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no more proof for Shermer's hallucintion theories than there is for NDE's being direct links to Heaven. Shermer states that we "turn to supernatural explanations because we do not yet have a fully natural explanation for the mind and consciousness." Is Shermer prepared to guarantee that we ever will. Is he stating that the only possible explanations we are allowed to have are those which fit his personal philosophy?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA true after death experience for each "soul" might very well be a manifestation of the beliefs that that soul held in life. Most metaphysical teaching states that there are various planes of existence. Why would the first leg of a journey not carry one through relatively familiar territory?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComputer intelligence exists only within the imagination of believers - and has for several decades.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Just Paul and others expressing similar viewpoints.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPersonally, not long ago I had major surgery and had to spend ~2 days in in the intensive care unit. There was little privacy, lots of activity, noise and always the bright lights. Despite being heavily sedated, I did not sleep. I became extremely paranoid, convinced the staff intended to kill me, despite also being fully aware that I was hallucinating! Of course, I couldn't let on that I knew of their intentions... At any rate, after they were finally able to stabilize my blood pressure I was sent to a private room & immediately slept for several hours. When I awoke everything was fine - I felt great!
Extreme conditions can certainly influence our perceptions of reality!
I would be interested to read a similar analysis of other phenomenon that people use to show the possibility of life after death. For example, I have read about past life experiences as researched at the University of Virginia, School of Medicine, Division of Perceptual Studies. The experiences researched in that department are harder to refute than NDEs. They have over 2500 cases that show children's knowledge of the lives of individuals with which they could not be familiar who died before the children were born. Many of the case are from cultures that don't believe in reincarnation. These cases give pause and are a good case for further investigation. What could the mechanism be to transfer the knowledge to the child's mind? Maybe there is more to our memories than the neuron's. Maybe there is another level, perhaps another dimension. Maybe that other dimension is heaven. Maybe that is where this idea called God might be located. That is way out there science. Maybe someday our superfast intelligent computers can explain to our low level brains how all that can really work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispjclendening is right, there are no data, no reproducible experiments. Shermer's less than scientific explanation for the phenomena is "The reason people turn to supernatural explanations is that the mind abhors a vacuum of explanation."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne might think that in a publication which has as part of its name "Scientific" there would be a footnote to link to this conclusion.
Shermer is a cry baby who gets his panties in a wad and derides or ignores scientific studies which go against his assertions. We can wait for his rebuttal to all the well thought out arguments to this article, but I doubt the coward can answer his critics.
When you can have people who have precognitive dreams that come true not just once but many many times, then people who have out-of-body/NDE experiences and have brought back information that couldn't be known by them and these experiences being recounted by people hundreds of times in separate accounts it isn't the person that has the experience that should be questioned it is the person like Shermer who should open their eyes and notice that the scientific method as of today is so very limited. To just pass this off as brain activity has been debunked no end. So easy to take the Shermer road he really is not a true Skeptic at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow much Angst must these people like Shermer be in. I pity them for not seeing the world as it truly is.
Many sites with plenty of info if you are ready to learn :-)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.brianweiss.com/about-the-books/
William Buhlman http://www.astralinfo.org/
Robert Monroe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZZHXtzuJ9c
The CIA funded 'Remote Viewing' for 20 years and one of the best was Joe Mcmoneagle http://www.mceagle.com/remote-viewing/stargate/stargate-qa.html
Russell Targ http://www.espresearch.com/realityofesp/
The best book bar none that combines Science and Metaphysics is Thomas Campbells 'My Big Toe' his Youtube is brilliant too http://www.youtube.com/user/twcjr44/featured
www.mybigtoe.com
So much more out there that basically proves there is more to us than a biological breeding machine.
Good Luck.
I don't know, could be one, could be both. I am not going to fall for that trap! However, I just wonder, and this comes from a very rational person, what are ghosts? If one believes "Ghost Hunters," and they have apparently caught some intriguing things on film then there is obviously something we are not aware of today. I am assuming (a terrible thing to do but I can't explore their claims) that nothing is falsified except the ones they discover as such, it does pose a conundrum. I have heard tales from other people as well so I am not basing this on a single series.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrying to reason with logic with religious people is a complete waste of time--they are illogical from the decades of being brain washed from when they were first learned to talk. Which should be declared child abuse and illegal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn ghosts, how does something so insubstantial it passes through doors get to the second floor? Or pick up a chain and rattle it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Insubstantial" kinda prevents any interaction with something solid.
NDEs and life-after-death are just mental processes. L-a-d is wishful thinking, with the person pretty certain that he is too magnificent a creation to just stop at death. The variations on the theme with all the paradises and the hells are just embellishments to the basic fear of dying, which the opportunist can foist on the fearful, with the aim of remaining close to the home fire, no longer needing to hunt and gather,.. just tell good enough tall tales that the others hunt and gather for him in return for hearing what they want to hear. Gives the preacher some political clout in the culture also.
Nature is a term commonly used to describe the world apart from Man. Expanding the definition of "natural" to include the observable universe leaves us the "supernatural", which I'd think would mean everything a person can imagine that's not logically and/or quantifiably tied to the observable. This would include life after death (LAD).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLAD's provability is of lesser importance to most believers than the fact that people cannot experience the absence of personhood. General anesthesia provides us an temporary approximation of it. Nobody comes back from death or upper-brain destruction. So, musn't we go somewhere else?
LADers (no pun intended) are mind/brain dualists, and apparently view compromised brains as anchors hindering otherwise nominally functioning minds. Minds must be able to decouple from brains and perhaps be transferable to another medium if post-death is to be experienced. No serious mechanism as to how this comes about has been described to date.
There's so much to be learned of our universe. Holding onto or concocting fanciful notions of existence will hinder a better understanding of the world, but can also provide comfort to many.
I don't argue with religious people.
But do you know of any other way besides a soul to address the research on past lives where children know of peoples lives who died before they were born and their parents don't have any connection to those people either? So perhaps science should think that there is a possibility of a soul. Do you know how people who claim to leave their bodies during operations have been found to see things that they would have no knowledge of? Regarding religious people, psychology recognizes that pastoral counsel is of great value. Even if there really isn't a God or a Buddha, the way the religious teachers teach us to live is very elevated. The problems with religions are common. But their benefits along the lines of telling people right from wrong far outweighs the negative. To denigrate all religion is throw out the baby with the bath water. Religion doesn't denigrate rational thought. It provides a value on which one can base their life while at the same time using the mind we have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion to the extent of persecution of those who believe differently certainly does oppose rational thought. A good life can be lived without any of the trappings of religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe murderous chaos in the Middle East where religion is the way of life proves the ruinous effect on society that it provides when uncontrolled.
Following the Golden Rule always works well.
.
Past lives... insufficient controls of the subject.
.
"So, musn't we go somewhere else?"... Can't think of any reason. The filament in the bulb has burned out. It's just plain gone.
I have experienced a NDE, while I was dying due to all air being crushed from my body. I do not want to go into the details of such, as I regard it as deeply personal. However, I would like to report that the emotions experienced were of curiosity and fascination (no fear), as I anticipated the revelation of the "great mystery". Fortunately, fate and chance intervened at the last moment, and I survived.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, I have been on the battlefield, where things have gone badly resulting in dead and dying. Those that had a belief system died with a embrace of bliss at the end. Those who seem to have faith only in themselves, died with a look of horror, calling for mother.
I don't know what any of this means, but I do know, that I prefer the former to the latter. They well may be hallucinations, but I think everyone will agree that there are some hallucinations that are better than others. GK
Our human consciousness has evolved an intelligence so profoundly arrogant and self serving that we believe our science can formulate the origin and workings of consciousness and intelligence..... It seems to indicate that the inner self is not wired for enlightenment. Is it too SIMPLE to grasp?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith religions, when push (death) comes to shove (recant), the numbers that will accept the push outnumber the recanters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWilling to die for an belief. Happens every day today.
Now, it's difficult to imagine a Reptlican or a Dumbocrat choosing to die for their party platform.. and the platform deals with the real world.. governing, social activity, responsibility.
To accept the words of some street-corner eccentric as being from a direct line from the OverBeing is OK, but one has to ignore the god-shouter on the opposite corner saying differently. They can't both be right, but both can be very wrong.
The OverBeing appears unable to deliver a consistent "revelation" to those seeking same. Such "revelations" reveal the cultural biases and bigotries of the revealer, nothing more.
Dying in bliss with the firm belief in the resurrection of the dead is surely better than dying without that, but the end result is the same. Neither person is disappointed. They're gone.
Many people have heard about Spiritual World and they talk about it, but nobody so far has managed to get an image of its Living Creatures. I am not speaking about being psychic, but of digital photo and 3D-4D SEIS Tomography modeling of the quaternion & optonion of Multidimensional SpaceTime. It's not science fiction anymore. It's a "3D SEIS Tomography" Models of 3D-4D SpaceTime Reality of higher dimensionality: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeisus2012/sets/72157631064216316/;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this* New knowledge and 3D-4D SEIS technology about four-dimensional SpaceTime cell growth environments can make a significant contribution to the development of cell therapies for 3D-4D SEIS Treating...
* Uniqueness of 3D-4D GeoSEIS Tomography technology is determined by algorithms that transform any 2D digital images of physical fields into volumetric (SpaceTime) 3D-4D SEIS Models of inner stress fields which reflects their evolution. Validation certificate for “4D GeoSEIS Tomography” Method: http://www.slideshare.net/JarosloveBondarenko/4-d-geoseissertificatrev1
Are you capable of adding anything substantive to any article on this site?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI mean beyond cherry picking facts and deciding what you believe based on anecdotes is somehow relevant to articles on science.
With all this special pleading, shifting of the burden of proof, moving of goal posts and such in the comments, how does a man get a few winks of sleep around here? Even the cherry pickers are making a racket!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat would an 3D image of nothing look like?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow to distinguish it from a 2D image of nothing?
bicyclemichaela said, "[religion] telling people right from wrong far outweighs the negative."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe he has it backwards (chicken or egg?).
Learning right from wrong did not come from religion. Religion came from learning right from wrong by observing human results.
Religion was simply the first science. It looked at the empirical evidence for human survival. Humans have always required other humans to survive. Variations of this communal need is seen across other species.
We learned how things worked (including right and wrong). We didn't always understand why, so we invented the supernatual to explain why (not claiming this was an eureka moment -- it evolved). The supernatural also provided relief from our existential anxieties. So the concept of the supernatural endured.
I read (somewhere) a few years ago about a hospital-based test being conducted to assess the validity of out-of-body experiences in near-death cases. The test was to be structured so that items and writings--which could not possibly be seen or perceived by the bed-ridden patient--were to be placed in the hospital rooms of those likely to suffer a NDE. The idea was to see whether the patient, who after their NDE might describe their "soul" moving about the room as their body lay dormant, could recall seeing any of these items or writings. I haven't heard anything about it since. Anyone?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a clever Jesuit teacher once remarked to me. Yes, Khal, that is the scientific explanation for why cultures invent God, but remember, the other explanation is that God is real. He didn't say "that is Faith." But I never forgot that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes there are good, scientific explanations for "NDEs" but the other explanation is that they are real.
The "other explanation" is dependent of faith. Faith can't move mountains, science can, and does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHoping in a hereafter is purely exercising faith, not logic or reality.
From the scientific approach, at which stage in the evolution of Homo Sapiens was the soul implanted? Are humans the sole possessor of a soul? Which version of the 1000s of descriptions of the hereafter are correct? Just the one the believer fixates on, disregarding all the other equally valid descriptions... which like a 3D image of a ghost are descriptions of nothing and like treason, merely a matter of dates as to which belief is the one that is true?
"Past lives... insufficient controls of the subject."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand on that point alone one can see how limited Science is of today and what a 'religion' it has become in itself.
Wanna volunteer for a controlled NDE? Science looks at things by controlling all the variables except the one which being investigated. Random capturings of the NDE aren't controlled, and therefore not science. These can be the basis for investigation though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEuphoric bliss in the religious experience is also uncontrolled, and has innumerable variations and expressions, sometimes as fatal as not coming out of an NDE.
Based on his background as a neurosurgeon, Dr. Alexander believed that he was in a better than average position to judge the implications of this near-death experience. (See Kindle sample of Proof of Heaven). The implications point to a major shift in paradigm and begs the question, "where is the evidence?" After all, his title is "Proof of Heaven." He qualifies the assertion of "proof" by explaining that his perference for a title was "An N of One" (See nytimes.com/2012/11/26) but the publisher preferred the actual title.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe existing materialist paradigm of science asserts that the mind functions only in the brain and does not survive death. Shermer cites Oliver Sacks' view that Alexander's NDE probably happened as he was emerging from his coma. Sacks characterises Alexander's version as "supernatural."
This brings me to the point of paradigm shift. From the materialst view, Alexander's theory is an anomaly at best. At worst, it is supernatural, that is, unscientific.
Jahn and Dunne (Margins of Reality: The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World) point out that the process of consciousness is the one area of human experience that dwarfs all others in its implications.
The research on the nature of consciousness is still in a beginning stage. Dr. Sam Parnia (What Happens When We Die, 2007; Erasing Death, 2013) summarizes the various theories of human consciousness in the context of near-death experiences and cites experts whose views may lead to a change in paradigm from the current materialist view. Dr. Parnia states that "the paradigms we hold in science may not be always absolutely correct; they are the best that we can consider for any given time with the information we have." (Erasing Death, p. 197). The anwer to "what happens when we die?" may lead to further discoveries and new ways of exploring them. Until then, conclusions such as Shermer's NDE as "proof of hallucination" are provisional and may eventually need revising.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt wouldn't be much of a heaven if it wasn't compatible with your beliefs and experiences, now would it? Presumably there are billions of intelligent species in the universe. If they all had the same human experience in heaven, well that would be hell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can imagine the chaos when just a couple of the feuding ideas on heaven get together in the hereafter. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut I won't be surprised when more research on the mental processes finds a potential for imaging thoughts. I have a roll of tinfoil ready if that capability falls into the wrong hands!
But an Overmind, nah... There's too much fragmentation in the cultures to indicate there's anything out there "beyond human" that might take an interest in our activities. The experiences we've had with those that think they've been touched by that Overmind are so awful that sadism would appear to be the most consistent trait of that thing.
Without a soul (spirit, inner self) sight, hearing, touch would have no purpose. Only because of the inner self could the senses evolve into some things that could be experienced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWithout a soul, evolution could give us reactions to light waves, sound waves, etc. But cognition would not occur. We might be machines with biological controls but we couldn't be sentient.
We would act according to the simple definition of intelligence but not the hard definition. Experiencing reality is much different than an electronic existance.
Animals use all the senses we have. Hearing, seeing, touching... to obtain food, mates, and flee from danger.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPurely instinct.. or is it?
Coyotes -always- run away when humans are seen...
Walking out back I heard a cop car go by with the siren on. And, some coyote pups responded. I began to walk to where I'd heard the noise... and... was observed by a coyote, which walked around me at a distance, sat and watched, and laid down on a small hump to watch what I was going to do. I left the area... Ankle high socks and shorts wouldn't be sufficient protection against all those teeth and desire.
h t t p:/ w ww.angelfire.com/indie/aerostuff/Coyotes-01.htm
The poppies in my front yard "cognate" when the sun is up, and when it is going down.. Fully extended petals during the day, and close when the sun gets low. Not even instinct, but it keeps them alive.
A soul does nothing for anyone. Evolution adds attributes that assist survival. And removes those that don't. Sometimes entire species.. Adding something that has no survival attributes at all is not something evolution does.
Were the soul valued as much as it is claimed, why the eagerness to release all those souls of those who disagree with someone else? Why not wait for the natural demise of the opponents? After all, "vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord". But those willing to take over that task have sent millions off to their final reward.. how can this be justified?
Trying to sneak an URL of the coyote encounter..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisangelfire.com/indie/aerostuff/Coyotes-01.htm
Yes so the Science method as we know it today is very limited and should not be used as a control for these experiences. These experiences will never fit into the Scientific model of today so forget it and move on and enjoy the mystery and flux of reality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can prove it to yourself although. :-)
To even try to convince someone that their belief is groundless is futile. When one decides to believe something then that is the end point since that decision becomes paramount.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHeaven is another story or narrative that fails the only testing methodology of reproducible science. Science first, religion later helps keep one clear thinking.
The limit on the scientific method is collecting sufficient information on the subject to be reasonably sure one has a handle on the situation, and can design tests to confirm or deny the hypothesis. Works very well, this intellectual and practical limit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuite difficult to schedule an NDE with all the proper controls at the site. Losing the test subject is never a good result.
Is there nothing we do not understand or can't figure out with our minds? Explain gravity to me and I'll explain near-death experiences to you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSchermer does not know the medical definition of hallucination. I am a retired physician who patients with NDE's.These are not hallucinations; they are too organized. And Schermer does not mention vericidal NDE's where the experiencer gains information not known to him, and gains it only through the NDE.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI almost didn't resubscribe to SA for next year considering the waste of paper devoted in a "scientific" publication on this and similar topics. The waste is not because a proposition, "There is life after death", is being debated; but, because there is no scientific (nor religious) community competent or qualified to judge the proposition or its negative as true or false.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCertainly if you accept that only potentially falsifiable propositions belong to science, and that universal negatives are not subject to empirical disproof, then debate on these issues is just a religious confrontation manqué. (This comment should not be understood as support for any religion's dogmas on the subject.)
Do people at SciAm feel left out of the popular, "sexy," persiflage that pundits in other areas pass off as serious discussion?
I think that is Alexander's point; he was not hallucinating. His experience was too organized. He then asked himself, how was his mind functioning and he predicts that it is outside of his brain. Of course, we don't yet know how. Shermer, who may not know what hallucinations are, closes the door on the issue and comes down on the side of "supernatural." Dr. Sam Parnia, resuscitation physician, has approached the study of NDE's in surviving cardiac arrest patients and has published two books, most recent, Erasing Death 2013.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe that Dr. Shermer's personal experience with hallucinations in the Race Across America puts his opinions and analyses of the experience one step ahead of those of us who have not had any hallucinations. And certainly ahead of the believers in the extra-natural sources, who desperately wish them to be such, despite the complete lack of indications that they're anything more than constructs of the mind under stress.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLooking at the occult and psychic worlds the desire to find that there is more than wishful thinking and deliberate flummery springs eternal, but the evidence doesn't even have a Square One to start from. Just a mishmosh of personal experiences that say completely opposite things about the world of hallucinations.
Go and prove it to yourself. Do a little remote viewing it is easy with a 'quiet' mind one can prove it to oneself beyond doubt. This is often overlooked as people look outside for answers when the proof is right within you. This is simply the nature of reality. Do it over many times like a Scientist and you will soon see what is real.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing and nobody is stopping you it may take a month a year or 3 years but it will prove to you beyond doubt you are more than your body :-)
Most people never try and rely on the popular vote. It doesn't matter but understand this is what needs to be done to know.
Some idealists think that he (the idealist) exists and his mind exists, but his body and the rest of the world are only knowable through his mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstead of body and soul, the idealist proposes mind and soul.
This is a special perspective. Once a person chooses this perspective, he sees everything through an idealist's glasses.
If a person wears these glasses, the idealist is right. If a person can't or won't wear these glasses, the premise doesn't make sense.
The same is true of life after death. There are two or more perspectives. Which ever perspective you choose will make the opposing premise false.
Is it possible to not take either perspective? That would be the scientific perspective: unbiased.
Prove what exactly? That the mind can go off into strange areas? That's what artists do all the time. It's what god-shouters do all the time, but with pernicious effects on those around around them, instead of the serenity of a masterpiece painting, or novel or symphony.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it's just human nature, sometimes unhampered by reality.
Hardly needs any extra-natural explanation that satisfies the fearful about living and dying.
Of course, we all know that if scientists have branded it as impossible, it is truly impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo be careful in giving science immunity from thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClarke's First Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
In the February 1977 Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, fellow science fiction author Isaac Asimov wrote an essay entitled "Asimov's Corollary" which offered this corollary to Clarke's First Law:
Asimov's Corollary to the First Law: When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
.
The corollary says it all. Public opinion cannot manufacture reality, however sincerely desired.
Go and try it yourself you are trying to intellectualize it. This is a typical fear reaction to something you thought you were safe from and wasn't an option. I am making it simple and straight to the point. No one is holding you back. You can't comment on something you haven't even tried to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGo and experience it for yourself.
I've found personal and psychiatric evaluations so freely offered on the Internet to worth exactly what was paid for them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEspecially when the opinion is a "typical fear reaction".
Fear of your reality being turned upside down. It is the only way to prove but people just don't think it as possible and don't even take the time to actually see if it is real or not. LOL
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFear is operating deny it if you want you may not even notice this.
Take the time it is all for the better not being right or wrong.
See message #80.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhite light of death is just lack of sugar to the brain and has nothing to do with a religious experience. The sorryest fact of life is the myths and story telling that people invent to fill their lack of knowledge to explain something they don't understand. After that, as in this story, the person telling the story marvels in the attention they are given and as times goes on inflame and embellish the myth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOther than anecdotal reports of subjective experiences (near death, meditation, etc.), there is no evidence that "mind" exists separately from "brain". However, we have ample evidence that mind is brain: diseases and injuries to the brain that alter mind, drugs that alter mind, etc. The brain is an extremely complex system (100 billion neurons with 100-500 trillion synapses) and, all told, we understand very little about it. We have some understanding of how the brain works at the micro level, and some understanding of how the brain works at the macro level, but there's a lot of space for further understanding between those levels. Some prefer to fill this void of natural understanding with supernatural supposition. But that's all it is -- supposition. If we are going to suppose, I prefer to suppose that mind is an emergent property of the brain's complexity. There is evidence of such emergence from other complex systems in nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI find it interesting, too, that everyone tends to have visions of Heaven during these "near-death" experiences. Now, if one believes there is a Heaven, then surely they believe that there is a Hell. It is known that NOT everyone is going to Heaven. It's just NOT going to happen...."The road to Hell is paved with good people with good intentions." Ever hear this? So, why haven't there been "near-death" experiences of Hell? I agree with the article. I believe that as the individual is awakening, they enter the "zone" when hallucinations can become vivid and real. And to let you know, this is coming from an individual who has his degree in Psychology and Behavioral Science, and believes totally in Heaven and Hell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt there all the data in the world you just need the key and you've got it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo B.S. here just telling you how it is as stupid and illogical as it sounds to you. Truth will stand up to anything you throw at it.
Over and Out.
I like ralder's comment, "... how can someone's near death experience proof [sic] OR DISPROVE the existence of life after death?" Bold added for emphasis.] NDEs do not prove that consciousness persists after death, but we don't, and never will, have a way to disprove that possibility. There is evidence of one sort on the side of proof, & of another on the side of disproof, but scientifically neither is decisive. In any case science has its inherent limitations; there are realms of human experience it is not equipped to deal with--& mysteries that the human race will never either fully understand or successfully explain away. Many of the comments here seem to me philosophically naive. What I notice about many of them--& they seem typical for many of these sorts of discussions, especially by readers of Sci Am--is that they conflate intelligence with the mind or brain, the mind with the brain, and/or the mind or brain w/ consciousness. These are all different phenomena, or at the very least the same sets of phenomena seen from differing viewpoints or levels of "magnification," w/ no necessary implication either for the ordering, or even existence, of causal relationships, or for ontological priority. For me the most serious conflation is the final one, of mind or anything else w/ consciousness. I believe that "consciousness," like "God" perhaps, is a word that can be defined, if at all, only incorrectly. Consciousness is sui generis, & unavoidably presupposed in and by everything we experience--whether "real" or "unreal"--including all action; all thought; all concepts such as "mind" & "body," "self" & "world," or "self" & "others"; all communication; & a fortiori all science. Consciousness should not be treated as an epiphenomenon. (For those interested in my biases, my father was a physicist, a rationalist, a materialist, and an atheist, & I was raised as an atheist, tho' not indoctrinated. My own "inner" experiences persuaded me of the reality of something transcendent and benign, to which I can choose to submit my being in this world, or not; & of the likelihood that "my" consciousness--tho' not necessarily anything resembling a personal identity--will persist after the death of my body.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Kadir-Buxton Jump Start can revive the recently dead, and would be a good place to start in any research on the subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the explanation for these experiences is that the conscious mind exists outside the physical brain, then why is it that these experiences almost always occur when the physical brain is either highly stressesd, derpived of oxygen, cooled below normal temperatures, bombarded by unusual real world stimuli as occurs when the body is in is in trauma, or experiencing the effect of some psychoactive drug or chemical? Why do these unusual mind states always seem to occur exactly when we might expect them to occur, if we assume the mind is an emergent quality of the physical brain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReading this article I just realized that loud sudden noises (like a slamming door or clap of thunder) would induce an apparent flash of light while dropping off to sleep. I have not experienced that since my college days and some years after. I wonder how the neurological shorting in the brain would be effected by these disparate signals to consciousness? Anyone care to elaborate?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing new these kind of death experiences Million reports are available from ancient time in world literature.People know they are all delusion.In nightmare anyone can see this kind of death experiences.I think some scientists are making sensation writing this kind of bombardment to fool the readers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRichard, any "benignity" is only in created existence and in the mind of the comfortably well-off removed from "nature, red in tooth and claw" that is the norm for this world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReal life is competitive, and assaulted from all sides with ways to be terminated in awful manners, which a benign creator shouldn't have included in the suite of life. A sadistic creator now, yes.
But randomly occurring events that are exactly that, random, are commensurate with a system that changes with the environment, good or bad to the inhabitants, and are what we see everyday, except where humanity interferes with the process with mass disruptions of the flow of life.
With evidence from 1000s of NDEs, the work of Dr Brian Weiss on past lives, the work of Dr Bruce Lipton on epigenetics, and so much more, Mr. Michael Shermer should change his column from "Skeptic" to "Closed Minded". A couple of months ago Mr. Shermer took on the topic of consciousness and that article was just as bad. Our left-brain, analytical world is only beginning to comprehend what mystics have known for millennia. A good place to start Mr Shermer is the NDE Research Foundation http://www.nderf.org/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want a more balance view and a couple of new ideas check out: LIFE AFTER DEATH: What Are Your Odds? on Amazon:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Life+After+Death%3A+What+Are+Your+Odds%3F
So a prominent neurosurgeon insists that the afterlife exists after waking from a coma. Makes sense to me. And I didn’t need to half die to tell you that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://wp.me/p1kMu0-cM
It is also appropriate to wonder why anyone would argue that nature evolves an eternal soul, and why anyone would further posit that it is unique to homo-s. I guess that this kind of chauvinism has evolved for some survival purpose within societies. Isn't it much easier to suppose that there is no eternal soul, and that intelligence and awareness in general are present in many kinds of organisms? It is for me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe soul provides the club the supernaturalists hold over the population, the threat of loss of that is to be consigned to everlasting torment. The one fantasy provides an escalation into ever more deranged ideas. That everlasting torment is totally at odds with the omniscient omnipotent creator is glossed over (with 1000000000s) of words meaning nothing, just keep that collection plate full.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't discuss religion with my friends. Like me they have one foot on the banana peel... and are content with their "sure and certain hope of the resurrection." It would be base of me to cause them concern when they're so close to the end.
Reaction to light waves, sound waves and other stimuli might evolve without a soul but images, sound, taste, smell and touch requires awareness. Awareness preceded human senses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCertainly true. I see aware animals every day, from the ravens that fly over to the ants that infest the place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowsomever, "awareness" of the supernatural arose when a gifted tale-spinner found it less arduous to tell the tall tales than hunt and gather. And it's been that way since.
Marvelous tales of the spirit world exist around the world, in all cultures. And the bull-shippers that spin them live well up on the hog, higher than those they've ensorcelled with their tales of everlasting pain after death.
Awareness is not a precondition of life. I don't believe plants are aware because they do not have a nervous system to transmit stimuli. Nor do they have the brain to create images, sound, tastes, smells and touch. Do they have a soul? Perhaps but if they do it must have a boring existence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomewhere in the evolutionary ladder animals began reacting to light and touch but this was probably mechanical. But for an animal to hear (and not just process sound waves) it must have had an observer and a listener. Such an entity defies explanation so far, but I know I hear and I see. I could not do either without a sentient organ(?) This sentient organ would precede sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch.
Without a sentient organ sight, sound, taste, smell and touch would have no audience and without an audience the sense as we know them would have no evolutionary purpose.
Of course my critics will say that they appeared out of no where to please some deity.
You oughta look into the theories of stimulus-response to find your sentience. Even one-celled animals react to stimuli.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStimulus-response works for sensors/controllers but not for sensations/awareness. What is missing in stimulus-response is the transformation of stimuli into sensations. The evolution of stimuli into sensations requires a sentient function.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt has always puzzled me that science explains such experiences away as just a function of the brain. How could it be otherwise? It's obviously a function of the brain. Could it be a function of the brain that was created by Buddha, Jesus, God, Allah, Frank...?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligious orientation is immaterial. The individual will often experience that which holds meaning for them...in the case of the doctor he was unfamiliar with the young woman that was his guide. It was only much later he learned this woman was his deceased sister. For him, having his sister come to him was the most powerful part of this "function of the brain."
What is striking is the transformation that takes place in the lives of these people afterwards, especially so in the cases of highly-educated nonbelievers.
Without perception the soul may still exist but perhaps space, time, movement and existence will not be knowable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo many people perception comes through the brain. When the brain dies, perception ceases and the (immortal?) soul has no abilities.
Can the soul perceive anything without a brain? We don't know and we never will because all the evidence of this comes from people with a functioning brain.
" How could it be otherwise? It's obviously a function of the brain."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is a valid assumption but go and do some research on NDE's or many other things and find out that what points to it isn't a function of the brain. That is just purely a belief you have :-)
When you study this intellectually without even experiencing anything there is overwhelming evidence that the brain has nothing to do with it.
If this isn't proof of the afterlife, what would be? I ask as a serious question. What evidence would you require to see?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll such stories of the afterlife are representative of what that person's life experiences were. And each is different. AN afterlife surely would be expected to be a uniform experience.. Not a mish-mosh of what everyone hopes to be there. And as mentioned, when did the ability to survive death as a "soul" become a survival feature that gave the soul owner some superior quality?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only use for a soul that I have seen is as a carrot to dangle in front of the believer, while the dangler collects tithes from the believer. Good pay for no work!
And no paybacks at the end.
I understand your non-humanistic approach to the mind and brain. But the carrot has no meaning (other than a carrot) without the soul. In fact all meaning disappears in the mind without a soul to understand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, what's the point of the mind without a soul?
The mind without the "soul" finds out that crossing with the light is safer. A stitch in time saves nine. Socks, then shoes. The usual things that one must do to function and stay alive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoulness has no influence here. Even ants will avoid a potentially dangerous situation.
Anticipation of potentially serious situations is a mark of intellect, not anything more than the usual functioning of an evolved brain, as is exploiting potentially beneficial situations. Chimps have been observed setting up objects for a future demonstration of irritation. Their "soul" is as existent as those in homo sap. Souls are salesleaders for the religions which enslave the minds of the believers with the fear of losing the nonexistent.
If you change "without" in your first statement to "with" you would be saying something different but no more convincing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWithout the soul the mind would be useless, like blood without the heart.
On the other hand, the soul without a mind would be useless as well. If the mind comes from the brain, then the brain is required to make the soul useful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis theory leads me to conclude that the brain creates NDE's.
I arrive at this conclusion with logic not related to religion. You seem to arrive at the same conclusion but because of a bias against religion.
What is religion, if not an artifact of the brain?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe mind changes rapidly as new information becomes available. The brain evolves slowly. This is because the brain takes 1000's of years change even 1%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeliefs are not be hardwired into the brain although some abilities are. Your own belief is in your mind, not your brain.
Whatever location you decide for it, the output as related to religion shows a damaged, diseased or aberrant functioning at that location.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's no more connection of the "mind" to anything above the mind than your shoelaces supply.
One part of the mind displays pain. Another part of the mind feels that pain.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe part of the mind that feels pain is called the soul.
In reality we don't know if the soul is actually part of the mind or a separate function that is in contact with the mind. Is it above, below or within? I don't know.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/09/health/belgium-near-death-experiences
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this