I'm curious if you've read Fr. Spitzer's take on this subject? Or is this article perhaps an indirect critique of it? He references many studies that do seem (to me anyway) to address some of your concerns but not all. It's a fascinating subject! I'd love to see you engage his arguments and referenced literature.
I actually spoke to him about it a while back when he was visiting BC, but at the time these objections weren't on my mind. I'll track that article down. Thanks Scott!
There are so many new examples that point to many of these experiences as being brain-caused phenomena.
A lot of people who use DMT attest to their hallucinations as being “more real” than reality. And now there is some evidence that the brain releases DMT naturally at the time of death, perhaps in some last ditch protective attempt. That could explain a lot.
I heard a comedian say that he once had a trip where he had a whole new family in a different reality. Births, milestones, the whole thing. And it went on for a whole life. When he came out of it he experienced grief as if he’d lost his real family. So I think these dreams/trips/etc can be very powerful, especially with other drugs present.
There are also hundreds of stories of Buddhist yogis who have visions of deities during their death process. Many of these masters have meditated for 10-15 hours a day for decades, and so seem to have an incredible ability to observe very subtle forms of consciousness. One master who was dying began crying and when his students asked why he said that all his life he had aspired to go to hell so he could help beings there, but now on his deathbed all he was seeing was visions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. While that is an extraordinary testament to his love and compassion, I do note that where he sees buddhas many people in the west see angels or god. And, for me at least, that points to the brain and culture being the causes.
I do wonder if your explanation of the brain picking up, sometimes unconsciously, some very subtle patterns might explain how some advanced yogis could know past lives or display knowledge that appears to be supernatural. Perhaps their years of deep meditation allows them to be more in tune with the brain’s incredible capacity for pattern recognition?
Some examples of disembodied consciousness in the Tibetan tradition are truly baffling. But I can’t help but wonder how much is cultural storytelling mixed with some of the above points.
Thanks Ramsay! You suggestion that something like unconscious accumulation of information might explain some supposed cases of supernatural knowledge is plausible!
My take on it is your brain is an organ that pumps consciousness just like your heart pumps blood. If your heart stops, you still have blood in your veins. I’ll admit it is a very simplistic viewpoint. Stream of consciousness and blood flow. The brain is the ‘head’ on an analog cassette tape.
NDEs offers evidence of how this otherwise unified system works.
Earthmonk Journal posted this as among their favorite summer posts, and since the subject fascinates me... I'm not smart enough to follow all the time-wimey arguments, but I love the categorical thinking. I especially appreciate the even tone. In the early 2000s, I went to a talk given by Jeffrey Long, a brain surgeon, when he spoke at USC. The room was decidedly hostile to the idea of NDE as proof of anything. In what seemed like a long ping-pong match, Dr. Long parried and returned questions. He said that after decades of research, there is no objection that he hasn't answered dozens of times. The other side only grew more fervent even as they ran out of arguments. Though his website is pretty slick and commercial, I found the man and the dedication of his life's work fascinating. It might be interesting to talk to him, if you do the research and write about this.
It is obvious to me that consciousness and the brain are independent of one another. Brain function is analogous to a radio. William James’ famously wrote and lectured about the immortality of consciousness.
Where a radio tunes into a radio frequency. The brain tunes into consciousness. If you unplug the radio the broadcast is still playing. NDEs provide examples of this decoupled relationship.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my essay. I really appreciate it! Of course whether NDEs are examples of the decoupling consciousness and the brain is assumes that they actually occur during the cessation of neurophysiological function, and there, as I argue above, I believe there is room to doubt.
Interestingly with regard to William James, in "Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine," he never really fully endorses disembodied existence, but only replies to two objections. He also gives no positive argument for the brain-as-receiver theory, except that it can make better sense of paranormal phenomena than simple materialism. Notice that if a lot of those phenomena (precognition, etc.) could be accounted for by unconscious accumulation, then there wouldn't be much to that doctrine. In that same lecture, James also admits that the proponent of the brain-as-receiver theory cannot make any sense about individuated consciousness post-mortem, and he leaves it up to the believer in immortality to figure that. (This has been a problem dating back at least to Aristotle.) I'm no James expert, so maybe he other in depth discussions of this issue, but in that essay he is pretty tentative. Elsewhere, e.g., "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?", he even suggests that consciousness can be eliminated as a distinct entity requiring an explanation.
I have been around Buddhist circles all my life and so often hear different explanations of consciousness that developed over the centuries from various meditative and scholarly traditions.
But the “radio” example really does seem like a backwards rationalisation to me. I see this creep into some Buddhist texts sometimes, often when using scripture to justify some phenomena. For example: the Buddha said all beings can attain enlightenment therefore all beings must possess Buddha Nature or enlightenment wouldn’t be possible. Well, that’s starting at the back and to a scientific mind the big gap there is: can you actually achieve enlightenment? Is that a “real” thing?
Back to the radio example. Often I think people start with the feeling that consciousness is the basis of the universe or everlasting or whatever, and then find a way to fit that into our experience. But so much evidence about the brain points to the opposite. We can see how various functions and emotions and capabilities develop in babies, for example. I’ve watched it in my own. We know how cells and synapses and genes interact to produce xyz experiences. The list goes on.
Some of the experiences I’ve seen about Buddhist masters recalling past lives perplex me and give me more reason to think maybe something else is at play. But I don’t think we can say that it’s obvious that consciousness can exist without the brain. We literally have never seen that.
Well said. I think we can make a very good case that a brain is insufficient for higher-lever consciousness, but that is far from showing that the brain is not a necessary condition for consciousness.
I'm curious if you've read Fr. Spitzer's take on this subject? Or is this article perhaps an indirect critique of it? He references many studies that do seem (to me anyway) to address some of your concerns but not all. It's a fascinating subject! I'd love to see you engage his arguments and referenced literature.
I actually spoke to him about it a while back when he was visiting BC, but at the time these objections weren't on my mind. I'll track that article down. Thanks Scott!
Have you read anything from the Bon tradition? They have some different and very interesting explanations of what happens at and after death.
It’s Jami Parrish btw- if you remember me
And I have not finished reading so I shouldn’t have commented yet - great read so far
Good to hear from you Jami! I'll look into the Bon tradition.
Great read.
There are so many new examples that point to many of these experiences as being brain-caused phenomena.
A lot of people who use DMT attest to their hallucinations as being “more real” than reality. And now there is some evidence that the brain releases DMT naturally at the time of death, perhaps in some last ditch protective attempt. That could explain a lot.
I heard a comedian say that he once had a trip where he had a whole new family in a different reality. Births, milestones, the whole thing. And it went on for a whole life. When he came out of it he experienced grief as if he’d lost his real family. So I think these dreams/trips/etc can be very powerful, especially with other drugs present.
There are also hundreds of stories of Buddhist yogis who have visions of deities during their death process. Many of these masters have meditated for 10-15 hours a day for decades, and so seem to have an incredible ability to observe very subtle forms of consciousness. One master who was dying began crying and when his students asked why he said that all his life he had aspired to go to hell so he could help beings there, but now on his deathbed all he was seeing was visions of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. While that is an extraordinary testament to his love and compassion, I do note that where he sees buddhas many people in the west see angels or god. And, for me at least, that points to the brain and culture being the causes.
I do wonder if your explanation of the brain picking up, sometimes unconsciously, some very subtle patterns might explain how some advanced yogis could know past lives or display knowledge that appears to be supernatural. Perhaps their years of deep meditation allows them to be more in tune with the brain’s incredible capacity for pattern recognition?
Some examples of disembodied consciousness in the Tibetan tradition are truly baffling. But I can’t help but wonder how much is cultural storytelling mixed with some of the above points.
Thanks Ramsay! You suggestion that something like unconscious accumulation of information might explain some supposed cases of supernatural knowledge is plausible!
My take on it is your brain is an organ that pumps consciousness just like your heart pumps blood. If your heart stops, you still have blood in your veins. I’ll admit it is a very simplistic viewpoint. Stream of consciousness and blood flow. The brain is the ‘head’ on an analog cassette tape.
NDEs offers evidence of how this otherwise unified system works.
Earthmonk Journal posted this as among their favorite summer posts, and since the subject fascinates me... I'm not smart enough to follow all the time-wimey arguments, but I love the categorical thinking. I especially appreciate the even tone. In the early 2000s, I went to a talk given by Jeffrey Long, a brain surgeon, when he spoke at USC. The room was decidedly hostile to the idea of NDE as proof of anything. In what seemed like a long ping-pong match, Dr. Long parried and returned questions. He said that after decades of research, there is no objection that he hasn't answered dozens of times. The other side only grew more fervent even as they ran out of arguments. Though his website is pretty slick and commercial, I found the man and the dedication of his life's work fascinating. It might be interesting to talk to him, if you do the research and write about this.
https://www.nderf.org/
I enjoyed this post very much.
It is obvious to me that consciousness and the brain are independent of one another. Brain function is analogous to a radio. William James’ famously wrote and lectured about the immortality of consciousness.
Where a radio tunes into a radio frequency. The brain tunes into consciousness. If you unplug the radio the broadcast is still playing. NDEs provide examples of this decoupled relationship.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment on my essay. I really appreciate it! Of course whether NDEs are examples of the decoupling consciousness and the brain is assumes that they actually occur during the cessation of neurophysiological function, and there, as I argue above, I believe there is room to doubt.
Interestingly with regard to William James, in "Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine," he never really fully endorses disembodied existence, but only replies to two objections. He also gives no positive argument for the brain-as-receiver theory, except that it can make better sense of paranormal phenomena than simple materialism. Notice that if a lot of those phenomena (precognition, etc.) could be accounted for by unconscious accumulation, then there wouldn't be much to that doctrine. In that same lecture, James also admits that the proponent of the brain-as-receiver theory cannot make any sense about individuated consciousness post-mortem, and he leaves it up to the believer in immortality to figure that. (This has been a problem dating back at least to Aristotle.) I'm no James expert, so maybe he other in depth discussions of this issue, but in that essay he is pretty tentative. Elsewhere, e.g., "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?", he even suggests that consciousness can be eliminated as a distinct entity requiring an explanation.
Hi again Jim, I’m posting a link to a recent X-Article on moving the boundaries for what we call consciousness
https://x.com/the_earthmonk/status/1827830400611139788?s=46&t=yHhr9CFS49ZimrUMgPJlQw
I have been around Buddhist circles all my life and so often hear different explanations of consciousness that developed over the centuries from various meditative and scholarly traditions.
But the “radio” example really does seem like a backwards rationalisation to me. I see this creep into some Buddhist texts sometimes, often when using scripture to justify some phenomena. For example: the Buddha said all beings can attain enlightenment therefore all beings must possess Buddha Nature or enlightenment wouldn’t be possible. Well, that’s starting at the back and to a scientific mind the big gap there is: can you actually achieve enlightenment? Is that a “real” thing?
Back to the radio example. Often I think people start with the feeling that consciousness is the basis of the universe or everlasting or whatever, and then find a way to fit that into our experience. But so much evidence about the brain points to the opposite. We can see how various functions and emotions and capabilities develop in babies, for example. I’ve watched it in my own. We know how cells and synapses and genes interact to produce xyz experiences. The list goes on.
Some of the experiences I’ve seen about Buddhist masters recalling past lives perplex me and give me more reason to think maybe something else is at play. But I don’t think we can say that it’s obvious that consciousness can exist without the brain. We literally have never seen that.
Well said. I think we can make a very good case that a brain is insufficient for higher-lever consciousness, but that is far from showing that the brain is not a necessary condition for consciousness.