“We are brought up in the West today to believe that the brain is a creator of thought, a producer―or at least an agent in the production―of consciousness. We are indoctrinated into the materialist belief that the mental world is merely a superficial, almost superfluous outgrowth of the physical. But now, in the light of NDEs, we must forcefully challenge that view. From those who have skirted death comes this extraordinary new evidence suggesting that cognition may actually broaden and become more profound at exactly the time the brain stops working. How is that possible?
“It is not simply that scientists have failed to explain consciousness, they have failed (in the main) to see that such an explanation is not even possible. Today’s prevailing view that subjective experiences arise spontaneously when certain physical systems (such as brains and, perhaps, computers) get complicated enough is fundamentally misguided. It stems from our habit of seeing the world dualistically―as having separate subjective and objective aspects. But in reality there is no such separation.
“Science starts from the assumption that there is a knowable logic to the universe―which there clearly is. It then strips away all aspects of the world that logic cannot tease apart, calling these subjective. There is nothing wrong with this―science couldn’t progress in any other way. The mistake is to assume that this separation of objective from subjective, which we choose to make, reflects how things really are. It does not. And this misunderstanding is now becoming very clear as scientists go beyond their own remit and try to explain consciousness as a derivative of brain function. Their failure is no surprise.
“Consciousness is not some side-effect, or epiphenomenon, of the objective world. It is an integral, irreducible part of reality. Consciousness is the subjective aspect of all things―the ever-present ‘mind’ of the universe.
“Most, if not all, the major organs of the body are regulators. The lungs don’t manufacture the air our bodies need; the stomach and intestines are not food-producers. So, if we manufacture neither the air we breathe nor the food we eat, why assume that we make, rather than regulate, what we think?
“Seen as a reducing valve, the brain is a mixed blessing. Without it, human beings would never have evolved. The brain shields us from an awareness of every little thing, letting through only those experiences that are relevant to our survival. On the other hand, the brain prevents us from being directly in touch with reality. It is the barrier that stands between us and the limitless potential of the universe.
“We may be supremely self-conscious, but for this very reason our awareness of reality is surprisingly limited.
“All other living creatures are more conscious than us, if by this we mean they interfere less with the totality of experience available to them. With inanimate objects, the distinction between the individual―the self―and the unity of everything breaks down completely. So, the bewildering paradox emerges that inert matter can be considered more conscious than anything that lives, while human beings are the least conscious creatures of all!
“Such a conclusion seems unreasonable. But that is only because it runs counter to the completely false picture of the world we normally uphold. We are the ones who invent the myth of objects and phenomena, of separation and selfhood. None of this really exists. Everything we experience through our rationalizing minds is an illusion. So what does it mean to say that a rock is more conscious than a person? Simply that what it is like to be a rock is the same as what it is like to be the whole universe, because outside of the human mind there is no differentiation.
“Our brains, far from being prerequisites for conscious thought, reduce the ever-present torrent of total subjective experience to a carefully moderated trickle. They condense the infinite, unbroken cosmos down to an extraordinarily parochial world that seems to revolve around the individual.
“The brain builds models. Then these models are projected outward, creating the appearance of ‘things’ and ‘happenings’ beyond the senses. But these phenomena are not objectively real. We see only our own confabulations― sophisticated falsehoods that include elements of experience as fundamental as our selves, our perceptions of moving time and our anxiety at the prospect of death.
“Brains improve the survival chances of the organic structures that encase them. They assist with the four F’s―fighting, fleeing, feeding and mating. And they do this by restricting and rescripting consciousness to just that paltry form needed to maximize our chances of staying alive.
“If we can readjust to the idea that consciousness exists only outside the mental world of the brain, then death no longer appears as the ultimate tragedy.
“Death is the breaking of a spell, the waking from a dream. In this alternative paradigm, consciousness is there all the time, all around us―in the trees, the earth, the sky, and the emptiness of space. It is there, waiting for us to rejoin it.”
David J. Darling, Soul Search: A Scientist Explores the Afterlife (Villard, 1995), 156-167.
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