The Science of Consciousness:
Survival and Near-death experiences
Survival
Many people have written to me saying that I am wrong about survival, that mind and body are independent, that something "mental" can survive us after death, that there are ghosts, and that near-death experiences indeed occur when a person dies, enters the afterlife, and comes back to life.
To those who say I am too embedded in the western materialist tradition, I say you are right, although I am perhaps just a little less certain than I was.
However, here is one thing I realise I don’t understand at all, and which although obvious on reflection I don’t think I have ever seen discussed - please correct me if I am wrong about that. iI someone dies, then their soul goes off and has a post-mortem experience, and comes back, how does the body and brain start up again? In some ways that would be even more miraculous than survival of consciousness.
The Bigelow Institute Prize
A recent competition awarded huge prizes to several essays that in the opinion of the judges gave the best evidence for the existence of survival of some form after death.
Ghosts
One theory is that ghosts are in some way a "recording" in the atmosphere rather than a manifestation of survival. The problem then is what is the mechanism of recording? I am particularly indebted to Leo Ruickbie and his entry in the Bigelow Institute competition on evidence for survival.
NDEs (near-death experiences)
There is much more that could be said here. In any future edition I will expand this section. It should be linked with discussion of survival. I think in any future edition I will combine the two topics.
I think there are two main issues with NDEs: proof that a person has clinically died in the sense of no brain activity, and proof that the person experienced something during this period.
Alexander, E. (2012). Proof of heaven A neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife. New York: Simon & Schuster. Eben Alexander's experiences and work in this area is particularly famous and much quoted.
Kelly, EF. (2018). Book review. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 32, 433-445.
Rivas, T., Dirven, A., & Smit, R.H. (2016). The self does not die: Verified paranormal penomena from near-death experiences. Durham, NC: International Association for Near-Death Studies.
Kubler-Ross, E. (2008). On life after death (2nd. ed.). Celestial Arts. Kubler-Ross is best known for her work on the cycles of grief. Some grieving reviewers say it brings them great solace; others call it too religious and pseudo-science. Contains work on NDEs and the Afterlife.
A particularly interesting case is that of the singer-songwriter Pam Reynolds.
I am particularly grateful to Stephen Mascari and Yew-Kwang Ng for their time and patience discussing NDEs and survival with me.
Recent important papers on NDEs
Martial, C., Cassol, H., Laureys, S., & Gosseries, O. (2020). Near-Death Experience as a Probe to Explore (Disconnected) Consciousness. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 24(3), 173–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.12.010
Parnia, S., Post, S. G., Lee, M. T., Lyubomirsky, S., Aufderheide, T. P., Deakin, C. D., Greyson, B., Long, J., Gonzales, A. M., Huppert, E. L., Dickinson, A., Mayer, S., Locicero, B., Levin, J., Bossis, A., Worthington, E., Fenwick, P., & Shirazi, T. K. (2022). Guidelines and standards for the study of death and recalled experiences of death––a multidisciplinary consensus statement and proposed future directions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1511(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14740
Evrard, R., Pratte, E., & Rabeyron, T. (2022). Sawing the branch of near‐death experience research: A critical analysis of Parnia et al.’s paper. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1515(1), 5–9. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14846
Kondziella, D., Dreier, J. P., & Olsen, M. H. (2019). Prevalence of near-death experiences in people with and without REM sleep intrusion. PeerJ, 7, e7585. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7585
YouTube Videos: An Introduction to Near-Death Experiences
Here are links to four brief videos by psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Greyson, perhaps the world’s preeminent authority on NDEs. He was once a sceptic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJs70b2fR3c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZHQXHYA6QI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5n2dzN1joU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVoOScxhJ9M
Religion
I try and avoid arguments about god and religion. I consider myself to be a 96% atheist, but believe that some “spiritual” life is essential. In my case it’s an awareness of the beauty and power of nature.
On the other hand, I don’t consider myself an “aggressive atheist”. If people want to believe different things, that’s up to them - as long as they leave me alone. There are several well-known books on aggressive atheism, including:
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God delusion. London: Bantam.
Hitchens, C. (2011). God is not great. London: Atlantic.
Here for balance are some books promoting a counter view, some by prominent former atheists. I am grateful to Stephen Mascari for these suggestions
Antony Flew (2008). There Is A God.
Francis Collins The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by.
Lee Strobel The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God
Patrick Glynn God, The Evidence: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World.
See https://www.milligazette.com/news/Opinions/16321-why-did-jean-paul-sartre-turn-a-believer-prior-to-his-death/
Rick Warren The Purpose Driven Life.
The Return of the God Hypothesis (2021) by Stephen Meyer
