Consciousness in death

[chris epic]

Hi there- I saw a show about "near-death" experiences and what not. But these weren't your a-typical stories of "I was clinically dead for twenty minutes, saw a tunnel, and observed my own body" One gentalman was hit by a car, died, was placed in a fridge for 3 days, was brought out to a table to be cut open for an autopsey, and then woke up just fine. Another woman's brain was completely shut down for an operation to repair an anurism. Her heart was stopped and all of her blood was taken out of her body. She had absolutely no brain activity. She was revived and recalls an out of body experience.

A scientist speculated "What if consciousness lies outside the mind and is more of an external university." I thought that that was a pretty intriguing notion, because how can you explain thought in a dead brain???? Could this be out "soul" and could this soul in fact be universal? I'm not making a claim for sprituality or religion, but we cant ignore metaphysics. Thoughts aren't tangible, there is no impirical evidence for the metaphysics of the mind.

 

[skoob]

She had absolutely no brain activity.

What does that mean? How is brain activity measured and if there's no detectable activity, does that necessarily mean that there is none?

A scientist speculated "What if consciousness lies outside the mind and is more of an external university." I thought that that was a pretty intriguing notion, because how can you explain thought in a dead brain????

Why is it believed that the near-death experience occurs when there's no brain activity, as opposed to right before or right after? I've heard claims that patients have remembered things (about their operation etc) that they shouldn't have been able to see. Have any of those stories been verified?

Could this be out "soul" and could this soul in fact be universal? I'm not making a claim for sprituality or religion, but we cant ignore metaphysics. Thoughts aren't tangible, there is no impirical evidence for the metaphysics of the mind.

The idea of our souls existing in a parallel reality is of course a possibility. I think that's how people in general tend to view themselves. We identify ourselves more as our minds, our thoughts, emotions, memories rather than viewing ourselves as a biological creature made of flesh and bones. A supernatural soul would explain why it is so difficult for us to pin down and explain our consciousness.

Then again, there's no actual evidence to support a supernatural soul. Of course, ff our souls exist in another reality it would probably be very difficult or impossible to detect or measure them. However, since they supposedly control our physical bodies there has to be some kind of (two way) communication between the physical and the spiritual world. It should be possible to observe this communication, i.e. the effect our immaterial souls have on our bodies. So, if you want to go soul hunting, you should be looking for (physically) unexplainable phenomena in our brains, e.g. neurons firing inexplicably. Just bear in mind that the absence of a natural explanation only means that there might be something supernatural going on. It might also mean that the natural explanation hasn't been found yet.

 

[steenkh]

One gentalman was hit by a car, died, was placed in a fridge for 3 days, was brought out to a table to be cut open for an autopsey, and then woke up just fine.

Sounds rather anecdotally to me! If he had been dead in a fridge for three days, assuming it was not a freezer (which would cause irreparable damage in itself), he would have suffered severe brain damage for lack of oxygen.

Another woman's brain was completely shut down for an operation to repair an anurism. Her heart was stopped and all of her blood was taken out of her body. She had absolutely no brain activity. She was revived and recalls an out of body experience.

I have no idea how they perform such operations, although I am extremely skeptical about "all of her blood was taken out of her body", and I have never heard that brain operations involve shutting down the brain completely. Nevertheless, I have difficulty believing that a barin surgeon would have characterised her as "dead". Because he would then routinely revive "dead" patients in the course of his operations, and I think that would cause quite a stir, and result in a new definition of "dead".

But I have no problem with the patient having an out-of-body experience in the course of her operation. Presumably this is just one of many things that a brain can experience when lacking oxygen.