Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Mind,
Consciousness, Brain:
Titus
Rivas
Why it Makes Sense to Explain
Near-Death Experiences by the Survival of Consciousness
by Titus Rivas
This paper is based on a somewhat more technical article in the Journal
of Religion and Psychical Research (January 2003).
Reprint requests to:
Titus Rivas
"Athanasia"
Darrenhof 9
6533 RT Nijmegen
The Netherlands
titusrivas@hotmail.com
Introduction
Recently, several medical doctors such as Dr. Pim van Lommel (The Netherlands), Dr. Sam
Parnia (UK) and Dr. Michael B. Sabom (USA) have carried out studies to determine if
patients who have officially been declared clinically dead really can get Near-Death
Experiences (NDEs). All of them conclude that NDEs do indeed take place among at least
some of these patients.
The researchers accept that consciousness is not destroyed when our brain stops
functioning. They also accept that consciousness will probably continue exist after death,
as in this sense, there isn’t any relevant difference between a flat EEG and brain
death.
Mainstream materialist scientists generally see consciousness as a byproduct of the
activity of the brain. For the question of survival, it is therefore sufficient to show
that the mind does not need the brain for its very existence.
Near-death experiences and materialist theories of the mind
If we can prove that consciousness is present after the brain has
stopped functioning, we have shown that materialism must be wrong. There are three
strategies of people who want to avoid the ‘survivalist’ conclusion of recent
NDE-studies.
1. Skepticism about the methods used in the studies: This is the usual response by
skeptics whenever they are confronted by results that go against their world view.
However, the scientific reputation of the researchers involved in the recent studies
certainly seems spotless and their work has been accepted as worthy of publication in
prestigious journals such as The Lancet. So it may be safely assumed that the
standard skeptic objection is simply baseless in this case. Research into NDEs cannot be
dismissed anymore as being unscientific.
2. Flaws in the specific interpretation of the results: Some critics think that the
findings of these studies should not be interpreted by the survival of consciousness.
Memories of an NDE during clinical death would just be false memories. At a subconscious
level of their mind, patients are simply fooling themselves. They never experienced
anything like it, but they just believe they did. Without being aware of it, they have
simply constructed a rich fantasy and they falsely assume that they had a real NDE.
Another version of this counter-theory wants us to believe that NDEs do exist, but that
they don’t occur during clinical death. In other words, the experiences happen during
the seconds or minutes before patients lose consciousness or a few moments before they
awake. Patients are simply confused about the exact moment they experienced their NDE.
However, researchers point to the fact patients have accurate (’veridical’)
impressions of events that took place while their brains showed a flat EEG. Therefore, any
hypothesis that claims that these people simply deceive themselves must account for these
experiences. It is very convenient for skeptics that such experiences, which seem clearly
related to Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP), are still quite controversial for many
mainstream scientists. However, the evidence for such accurate impressions during clinical
death is growing and its quality is also increasing (Ring, 1998; Sabom, 1998; Rivas, 2000;
Abdalla, 2002). So unless we wish to remain hard line skeptics at any cost, it seems wise
to take them very seriously.
What kind of ESP might in principle account for events that happened during a flat EEG? In
parapsychology,we know two categories of ESP that are related to a time factor. First,
there is precognition which in this context would boil down to an experience of an event
which took place during the stage of flat EEG before that experience occurred. According
to the false-memory theory the patient will not eventually experience the event while it
is taking place. During the stage of flat EEG there wouldn’t be any awareness
whatsoever. More importantly, the visions of events to come should take place before the
patient loses consciousness or at least before he enters the stage of flat EEG. And he
should lose all memory of having had such a precognitive vision after he has come to.
Therefore, I personally cannot take this very far-fetched possibility seriously and I
really think we should dismiss the precognition-version of the false memory theory.
The other time-related form of ESP is called retrocognition, which means: knowledge
acquired through ESP of past events. The retrocognition-version of the false memory
hypothesis interprets memories of veridical experiences during the stage of flat EEG as
follows. At a subconscious level of their minds, patients with an NDE may use ESP to get
knowledge of past events which happened during their coma. They project that knowledge
into their false memories during the last moments before they regain consciousness. The
theory needs to hold that all patients with veridical experiences during their flat EEG
were somehow motivated to create a fantasy. In that fantasy they would include false
memories of real events by retrocognition. Some patients would be subconsciously motivated
to use retrocognition to deceive themselves about their lack of consciousness during their
flat EEG.
Retrocognition is a very strange hypothesis for NDEs, because it
suggests that a patient would not use ESP to perceive events that happen between the stage
of flat EEG and complete awakening. Instead, he would focus on events that have already
taken place. The theory cannot explain cases of NDEs in which there are paranormal
(accurate) impressions also of events which occurred during the awakening process itself.
Retrocognition would not be able to explain cases in which patient experience such
impressions as part of a coherent and continuous stream of consciousness.
An even more fatal weakness of this theory is that it uses a very
unmaterialistic concept -retrocognition- to uphold a materialistic theory. Even if
it were true, it simply could not be defended by a materialist, at least not by a
conventional materialist. By its very nature, the retrocognitive false memory theory needs
to be part of a broader radical dualistic theory about the mind-brain relation. It might
be defended by the so called "animistic" school of thought within the
parapsychological tradition. This is a current which promotes the explanation of possible
evidence for survival after death in terms of ESP (or psychokinesis). However, it is very
ironic that even a hard line animist like Hans Bender (1983, page 148) concluded that the
ESP needed to explain accurate ‘veridical’ experiences during NDEs is in itself
suggestive of survival after death.
In any case, if veridical memories of events during flat EEG are taken seriously, we must
leave the plane of (conventional) materialist theorizing about mind-brain relations. After
that, we have to ask ourselves which theory is simpler: a dualist theory which holds that
the memories of events during flat EEG are false memories, constructed via retrocognition.
Or rather a dualist theory which holds that such memories simply are real memories based
on real experiences. After we have accepted a dualistic framework, we can no longer
consider the real memory theory as more complicated just because it would imply survival.
Even animistic champion Hans Bender acknowledges that at least some form of survival is
implied by any serious ‘radical’ dualist theory. Therefore, I conclude that the
false memory-theory is more complicated than necessary. In order to avoid the conclusion
that consciousness survives death, it needs to postulate a process which is only plausible
within a theory which ultimately implies at least some form of survival of the mind after
death. So it really is a theory which is more complicated than a straightforward
survivalist theory. It implies both survival and a strange, unknown kind of retrospective
distortion of memory through retrocognition.
Therefore, in my opinion, we should only adopt the ‘false memory through
retrocognition’theory after it would be shown that memories of NDEs must generally be
false. It's the animists who have to show the (radical) survivalists wrong in this case.
Certainly not the other way round. The radical survivalist theory is the simplest
interpretation of NDEs that can explain every aspect of them. The theory can be refuted by
evidence for a more complex theory such as the “false memory through retrocognition”-theory.
3. Adaptation of mainstream materialistic neuropsychological theory: The last materialist
response is defended for example by Karl Jansen, a psychiatrist known for his attempts of
artificially producing experiences which resemble NDEs. It states that memories of NDEs
are indeed real memories, but that there would still be some unmeasurable level of brain
activity which can still account for them (Abdalla, 2002). Accurate impressions of events
during flat EEG are usually ignored by this theory.
The problem with this theory is that there is (by definition) absolutely no evidence for
it. Theorists seem to be quite content with pointing at unsuitable parallels such as
certain types of sleep EEG. But no acceptable close empirical analogues have been
presented so far. For instance, during most vivid dreams there is rapid eye movement
(REM).
As Pim van Lommel points out, if we accept NDEs as real experiences during flat EEG, we
also have to accept that patients experience normal, full-blown and even heightened
conscious mental activity in them. If critics want to explain this away by a still unknown
type of unmeasurable neural activity, they have to present parallels which involve normal
(lucid) or heightened conscious mental activity. And which can at the same time be
satisfactorily explained by known neural activity. Otherwise, we must conclude that the
theory is based on nothing more than unfounded speculation! It is not forbidden to defend
a cherished, well-founded theory against new evidence, but such a defence should of course
be plausible and based on acceptable data. As far as I know, there is no serious evidence
for this theory as a counter theory for survival. That is precisely the reason that Pim
van Lommel simply rejects it as having no scientific basis.
Bibliography
- Abdalla, M. (2002). Cardioloog Pim van Lommel haalt bijna-dood ervaringen uit het
donker. Paravisie, 17, 13-27.
- Bender, H. (1983). Zukunftsvisionen, Kriegsprophezeiungen, Sterbeerlebnisse. Munich: R.
Piper Verlag.
- French, C.C. (2001). Dying to know the truth: visions of a dying brain, or false
memories? The Lancet, 358, 9298, 2010.
- Lommel, P. van, Wees, R. van, Meyers, V., & Elfferich, I. (2001). Near-death
experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. The
Lancet, 358, 9298, 2039-2044.
- Parnia, S., Waller, D.G., Yeates, R., & Fenwick, P. (2001). A qualitative and
quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in
cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation, 48, 149-156.
- Ring, K. (1998). Lessons from the Light: what we can learn from the Near-Death
Experience. New York: Insight Books.
- Rivas, T. (2000). Herinneringen aan een periode tussen twee levens. Prana, 120, 33-38.
- Sabom, M. (1998). Light and Death. Zondervan Publishers.
Acknowledgements
I’m grateful to Dr. Pim van Lommel, Anny Stevens-Dirven,Pieter van Wezel, MA, and Dr.
Donald R. Morse for their useful comments. I also thank Victor Zammit for his help in
making the original article more accessible for a general public.
|