An objective argument: Rouleau excerpt #5

Rouleau writes: There are at least three additional concrete reasons why subjective accounts such as NDEs, OOBEs, and GEs should only be used sparingly in pursuit of a scientific approach to understanding survival. First, scientific evidence demands replicability for independent verification which is not possible for individual subjective experiences. And while collections of similar experiences reported by many individuals may constitute evidence of a sort, they can always be explained by conserved brain structure-function relationships across the human species. In his book entitled “Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs”, notable neuroscientist Michael Persinger explains that because brain structure is highly conserved across the billions of humans on the planet, similar experiences associated with death are expected:

The fact that similar allusions to death (from people who have almost died) exist in many human cultures does not prove the validity of these experiences. Similar near-death reports may only reflect the similar construction of the human brain. They may indicate only that human brains undergo similar sequences as bodies slowly die. This is certainly not surprising and would even be mundane if any other part of the human body was involved. Manifestations of muscle deterioration, for example, follow more or less the same sequence no matter what human culture has reported it. 

The most striking example of this involves the pervasive NDE of “the light at the end of the tunnel”. This visual experience can be explained by the highly conserved structure of the occipital cortex and its anatomical relationship with the posterior cerebral artery. Upon loss of blood flow during cardiac arrest or ischemic stroke, peripheral vision becomes impaired before central vision, producing a visual window: the archetypal experience of a darkened tunnel with light at its center. 

 

While the labels that describe the tunnel phenomenon might vary from culture to culture, the common perceptual features reflect the common functional anatomy of the brain and its arteries. In other words, the assumption that shared glimpses of an afterlife across multiple near-death reports constitute evidence for the existence of a genuine space beyond life can always be undermined by the alternative hypothesis that humans share a conserved brain structure with conserved experiential correlates. Similarly, entoptic phenomena, which are visual experiences caused by the structures of the eye itself that appear universally throughout history including in paleolithic art motifs, illustrate the fundamental problem of relying on convergent subjective reports as a form of evidence.

The second reason for the sparing use of subjective accounts is the following: NDEs, OOBEs, and GEs are, by definition, brain activations that are reported in the living state and the same neuropsychological correlates have been reported in individuals who did not die or nearly die. Because NDE-type experiences – including the sensation of floating away from the body, entering another plane of existence, or encountering supernatural beings – are reported independent of death, the assumption that recondite information from an afterlife is being relayed to the living state is only one of many possible explanations. The third and final reason is that all of these experiences can be reproduced experimentally in healthy, living subjects in the laboratory. 

 

Indeed, mystical, religious, transcendent, euphoric, rapturous, and conversion-type experiences have been elicited by direct stimulation of the brain and the temporal lobes in particular. Since the early stimulation experiments with surgical patients, non-invasive replications with healthy individuals using applied electromagnetic fields have been performed with similar results. These include the sensed presence, OOBEs, and visitations by post-mortem apparitions and deities. 

 

That what appear to be reports from the afterlife can be reproduced experimentally in the laboratory should arouse a healthy skepticism in the scientifically minded. Of course, there will always be the possibility that the act of stimulating areas of the brain that induce experiences of an afterlife is, in fact, allowing the individual to experience a genuine reality that can only be accessed in particular altered states of consciousness – like a virtual path through the looking-glass. However, for the reasons listed above, the contents of subjective experiences should not be regarded as strong forms of scientific evidence.

With these caveats in mind, we turn to the proposed solution that I claim will, beyond a reasonable doubt, support the survival of consciousness after bodily death. As will be discussed throughout the remaining sections, the way in which the brain functions and interacts with consciousness is central to the survival hypothesis. 

 

Drawing on extensive experimental evidence, I will demonstrate that brain functions including consciousness are not fully explained by the conventional neurophysiological model. Brain function is at least partly determined by and can interact with natural, physical forces outside of the head – a model of consciousness that was first articulated over a century ago by one the most significant figures in the history of psychology.

 

Nicolas Rouleau, PhD, a neuroscientist and bioengineer, is an assistant professor at Algoma University in Canada. He received an award from the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies "An Immortal Stream of Consciousness" in response to its search for "scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death." Footnotes and bibliography are omitted from these excerpts from his essay, but the full essay is available online at https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/contest-runners-up/.