EMF-brain interactions: Rouleau excerpt #11

Rouileau writes: When I joined Dr. Michael A. Persinger’s laboratory in 2012, I spent a few years developing several ideas and techniques, including EEG, before coming upon William James’ hypothesis of transmissive brain function. Dr. Persinger was a clinical neuropsychologist, scientist, and the head of an interdisciplinary neuroscience laboratory – the Neuroscience Research Group (NRG) – where creativity and the desire to challenge assumptions were the price of admission. Beyond the “God Helmet”, Persinger and his rotating team of NRG members were responsible for some extraordinary discoveries in both mainstream and marginalized scientific circles over the last 40 years. Indeed, his work on the biological effects of low-intensity EMF exposures, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and consciousness are well-noted.

However, Persinger also explored the empirical bases of psi phenomena including remote viewing, poltergeist and haunt events, alien abduction and mystical experiences, as well as mind-matter interactions. As I was involved in the NRG’s previous investigations concerning the effects of the Earth’s magnetic field on cognition and behaviour, I was inspired to ask the question of whether electromagnetic forces and their interactions with the brain could satisfy the conditions of James’ hypothesis of transmission. Upon further examination of the problem, it became clear that testing the hypothesis would require a complete re-framing of our traditional approach to neuroscience research.

To make any progress at all, we needed to conceptualize consciousness as a physical entity located at least partially outside of the brain. Only then did it become reasonable to consider the possibility of measuring correlates of consciousness as a function of EMF-brain interactions. Just as dissecting radios in search of music would fail to grapple with the underlying mechanism, so too would a study of transmissive consciousness that treated the brain as its generator.

Over the next 3 years, Persinger and I designed and executed dozens of experiments with chemically fixed, post-mortem human brains, searching for extracerebral signs of consciousness. We hypothesized that brains could passively receive and process electromagnetic information. Because reception would be dependent upon the antenna-like, material structures of the brains rather than their active neurophysiology, life would not be a requisite condition for transmissive function.

We predicted that by measuring human brains that were chemically fixed shortly after clinical death, it would be possible to detect signals that could be filtered by the brain to express consciousness. Because any brain activity associated with action potentials would be eliminated by fixation, we hypothesized that what dynamics remained would constitute evidence for transmission, and therefore, the survival of at least one type of brain function following death. Our model of brain function would accommodate both active (productive) and passive (transmissive) functional dependencies.

The following are some of the types of questions we asked when designing our experiments in search of EMF-brain transmissions: How do the properties of applied electromagnetic fields change when they interact with post-mortem human brain tissues? Can putative transmissive functions be shielded by EMF-blocking materials? Do the frequencies of EMFs shift upon interacting with brain tissues to align with known neural correlates of consciousness? Are EMF-brain interactions similar in living and post-mortem brains? Do brain regions “filter” electromagnetic radiation differently? As far as we were aware, these questions had never been asked before and the potential rewards were worth the time and effort.

In 2017, I published my doctoral dissertation entitled “Structures and Functions of the Post-Mortem Brain: An Experimental Evaluation of the Residual Properties of Fixed Neural Tissues”, which is a collection of 7 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that constitute the first empirical assessments of William James’ transmissive hypothesis. In this section, I will describe some of our main results and their implications relative to the survival of human consciousness following bodily death. In each of the studies, we used post-mortem human brain tissues (originally donated for research and teaching purposes) and a common measurement technique based upon EEG. Needle electrodes were embedded into the cerebral cortices of fixed, post-mortem human brains to record low-amplitude microvolt fluctuations.

Whereas all conductive substrates, brain or not, can express electrical noise as slight voltage fluctuations, organized patterns among the noise reflective of living-like brain signatures would not emerge in all substrates. This would be analogous to detecting highly organized voices as whispers among a much louder cacophony of environmental sounds. We hypothesized that the preserved structure of the brain could operate like a biological antenna, receiving electromagnetic transmissions as subtle but detectable induced currents that would be uniquely filtered by the probed tissue region.

We found promising results. Despite significant levels of electrical noise associated with the measurement of voltage fluctuations within post-mortem tissues, reliable oscillatory patterns were apparent. That is, the electrical “fingerprint” of each cortical region was unique, not uniform. Gross electrical geometries could be discerned across the brain and certain regions amplified natural or artificially applied EMFs and direct current more than others. Therefore, whatever we were measuring was not random, and the material properties of the brain were modulating the electrical noise in ways that other materials would not.

Here, I will discuss the specifics of our major findings that demonstrate transmissive brain function, and therefore the survival of consciousness, is possible beyond a reasonable doubt.

Our initial discovery was derived from comparisons of living and post-mortem human brain measurements. First, we measured the brain activity of living human subjects using EEG while they wore EMF-shielding caps over their heads. We wanted to know if brain activity would change as a function of environmental EMFs – which are about 50 million times less intense than those associated with MRI scanners – and if we could inhibit the effects with shielding. The experiment had two measurement phases: 1) with the shield, and 2) without the shield. Therefore, each individual was subjected to EEG measurements with and without the EMF-shielding cap (i.e., within-subject design); however, the order was counterbalanced such that some participants wore it during the first phase and others wore it during the second phase.

Just as a full-body Faraday cage made of copper can significantly attenuate the strength of EMFs, we reasoned that a similarly grounded, copper-lined cap covering the skull could partially block impinging EMFs on the brain. We experimentally demonstrated that when living subjects wore a copper-insulated covering over their heads, the amplitudes of their brainwaves were markedly suppressed relative to when they were not wearing it; however, these suppressions were non-uniform.

Specifically, low frequency (theta, 4–7 Hz) brain activity became less synchronous over the right temporal lobes of participants when they wore the EMF-shielding cap relative to when they did not. We source-localized the EEG signals, which were originally obtained over the surface of the scalp, to the parahippocampal region using a technique called standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA). That is, the actual source of the EEG differences at the surface were due to changes in the deeper parahippocampal region near the base of the inner surface of the skull.

It should be noted that the material structure of the parahippocampal region is unique because it is the architectural transition point between the 6-layered “neocortex” and the 3-layered “archicortex”. It is also the place in the brain where experience and memory functionally converge as the structure of the neocortex shape-shifts into the hippocampus. Our results demonstrated that shielding the brain from environmental EMFs affected the temporal lobes asymmetrically, which suggested that the brain may be non-uniformly susceptible to EMF-based transmission. If similar asymmetries could be found in post-mortem tissues, then we could confirm a passive EMF-brain interaction that is expressed in both living and post-mortem brains.

To that end, we measured the electrical noise within left and right parahippocampal regions of 3 separate post-mortem human brain specimens. Notably, we observed more theta-band oscillations in the right parahippocampal regions relative to the left. The effect was also specific to the “grey matter” or cell-containing regions and not the adjacent “white matter” or fiber-containing regions, which indicated the complex microstructure of the tissue was a relevant receptive factor.

In summary, we found that EMF-brain interactions are detectable in living and post-mortem brains, can be attenuated by EMF-shielding, affect brain regions asymmetrically with a deep temporal lobe focus, and affect some brain oscillation frequencies (i.e., theta) but not others.

 

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/.

Transmissive consciousness: Rouleau excerpt #10

This is Nicolas Rouleau’s electromagnetic, transmissive model of consciousness that survives brain death. He explains: Infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), and visual light (VL), as well as electromagnetic fields (EMF) interact with brains to transmit consciousness that can be inferred by measuring the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). The electromagnetic energies that transmit consciousness are physically independent of the brain and EM-based signals are readily emitted by the brain. Because EM-based inputs and outputs are independent extensions of brain information, consciousness likely survives brain death.

Having described the mechanisms underlying the electromagnetic transmission of information within the living brain, the following question becomes relevant: How does death impact the brain’s ability to interact with electromagnetic energy? As previously discussed, when the brain dies and decays, the cellular membranes that sustained its electromagnetic functions lose their structural integrity and their ability to generate action potentials. Without these features, it is generally assumed that the productive functional dependence of the brain is no longer possible. Given enough time, a decaying brain will decompose and then disintegrate entirely – leaving no trace of function, including consciousness, behind. To prevent decay and decomposition, brains can be placed in preservatives like formaldehyde that maintain both their gross and fine structures – a process called chemical fixation. While there are many ways to “fix” brain tissues, the net result is the same: cells are forced into complete stasis.

That is, the positions of cells are held constant and all of their activities that are dependent upon the passage of time stand still. In effect, the brain becomes a three-dimensional “snapshot” of itself that is structurally stable but functionally inert. Or, rather, functionally inert from the perspective of productive functional dependence. Just as a tuning fork holds a definite shape that is receptive to transmissions of a specific frequency of vibrating air, perhaps the fixed structures of the brain are similarly receptive to transmissions of electromagnetic oscillations.

While the preservation of brains is by no means a recent development, the technique presents contemporary scientists with a unique opportunity to test the transmission theory of consciousness directly by experimentation. Analogous to the practical significance of genetic knockout models, the chemical fixation process eliminates the possibility of productive function. 

But what about transmissive function? If brains can, even in death, filter EMFs such that they become – as William James put it – “sifted and limited” to express electromagnetic signatures of consciousness, then survival can be empirically tested. I, therefore, designed several experiments to test the transmission hypothesis using post-mortem human brain tissues and the results compelled me to re-evaluate all of my assumptions about brain death.

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.

Our electromagnetic brains: Rouleau excerpt #9

Rouleau writes: Despite the darkened environment of the skull, the cerebral cortex, hypothalamus, and striatum express photoreceptors that are particularly sensitive to blue and ultraviolet light. The pineal organ, which is a well-known circadian regulator and René Descartes’ hypothesized seat of the soul, also contains photoreceptors.

Unlike the photoreceptors of our retinas, which allow us to detect photons with wavelengths corresponding to visible light, these deep-brain photoreceptors, which also detect visible light, are not linked to vision at all. Their widespread existence throughout the brain suggests these recondite photoreceptors are functionally relevant; however, investigations to address their roles are ongoing.

While light can penetrate the skull, it is unclear whether these deep-brain photoreceptors primarily detect light from within or outside the brain under normal circumstances. Together, these findings indicate that human brains are equipped with the capacity to emit and detect electromagnetic radiation in the form of visible or near-visible photons.

Though it should be clear by now that the brain emits and is receptive to electromagnetic radiation, the extent to which electromagnetic signaling is integral to brain activity has not yet been fully elucidated. As discussed in a previous section, synaptic transmission involves an electromagnetic discharge called the action potential that triggers the release of neurotransmitters. This is often referred to as electrochemical signaling, and therefore, is only partially electromagnetic.

However, there are at least two additional neuronal signaling modalities that are both purely electromagnetic. The first is electrotonic signaling, which involves direct connections between cells called gap junctions. With electronic signaling, the membranes of two or more cells form electrical bridges between their inner compartments and become functionally integrated. The third and most recently identified signaling modality is called “ephaptic coupling” and is the definitive neural signaling modality that demonstrates a direct brain dependence upon EMFs as a source of useful signaling information.

While synaptic transmission and electrotonic signaling involve interfaces that are directly connective or “wired”, ephaptic coupling is truly “wireless”; it occurs when cells detect and respond to electric fields emitted by adjacent cells. Because ephaptic coupling is non-directional, any neuron that fires an action potential can stimulate surrounding cells including itself by the reciprocal flow of electric field activations.

Therefore, ephaptic couplings supply the brain with many more wireless connections than wired connections, including looped circuits that are necessary for a process called reentry: a bidirectional exchange of information that may be a requirement for consciousness. As with other modalities, ephaptic coupling can be excitatory or inhibitory, with known functional roles within olfactory regions, the cerebellum, and the memory-encoding hippocampus, where slow and periodic activity self-propagates across the tissue like waves, constructively interfering with a veritable ocean of electric fields. Fundamentally, a neuron stimulated by its neighbor via ephaptic coupling cannot be said to have produced its own activity. Rather, all neurons are connected to each other by a Jamesian transmission of electromagnetic radiation.

The discovery of ephaptic coupling demonstrated that the microscopic environment of the brain is teeming with electromagnetic information, and in recent years researchers have turned to this exciting new modality as a means of furthering models of brain dynamics that are compatible with consciousness. Among them, Anastassiou and Koch presented a compelling review that endogenous electric fields at the cellular and network levels may provide vital feedback mechanisms facilitated by ephaptic couplings that are intrinsic to cognitive processes. Some scientists have suggested that ephaptic coupling may extend a capacity for consciousness to single cells as well as other animals and plants. Still others have implicated the often-neglected glial cells as contributors to ephaptic coupling by calcium-current-induced magnetic fields, which would indicate that nearly all brain cells contribute to the organ’s macro-scale EMF patterns.

This runs contrary to modern assumptions about how the brain works but opens up new and exciting possibilities, particularly for transmissive function. There is likely much to learn about ephaptic coupling but one thing is clear: it demonstrates that EMFs within the brain are not mere biproducts or meaningless noise – they contribute to signaling dynamics by transmission and, ultimately, form mental states. What if all the longstanding doctrines and dogmas that position neurotransmitters and other chemical intermediates as the chief determinants of brain functions such as consciousness are more epiphenomenal than causal? As we lift the veil that once obscured the brain’s transmissive functional dependence, its fundamental electromagnetic nature becomes clear.

While brain-based emissions of electromagnetic radiation are abundant, the functional relevance of EMF-brain interactions on consciousness can only be fully appreciated with an examination of the effects of experimentally applied and artificially generated EMFs on brain function. The most common experiences associated with applied EMF-brain exposures are the reports of “phosphenes” or perceived flashes of white light in the visual fields among patients subjected to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The magnets that generate the high-intensity, time-varying magnetic fields of the MRI activate nerve bundles within and along the visual pathway by Faraday’s law of induction, driving the flow of electric current and ultimately producing simple visual hallucinations.

Other established biological effects of MRI exposure are metallic taste, dizziness, nausea, and headaches, which suggest activations of the insular and temporal cortices. The same principles have been applied to engineer clinical devices and techniques, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), to treat neurological disorders. TMS is a technique by which high-intensity EMFs are applied over the surface of the scalp, stimulating brain tissue in efforts to treat depression, anxiety, post- traumatic stress, as well as to facilitate recovery from traumatic brain injuries. TMS can also be used to reliably activate the primary motor cortex, which allows experimenters to control the movements of their subjects. In one notable experiment, scientists induced participants to move their left or right hands by secretly stimulating right or left motor areas respectively.

Remarkably, when participants – who were not aware if, when, or where they were stimulated – were asked to provide a rationale for why they moved their right or left hand they frequently reported that it was their choice – that they “wanted” and “intended” to move. Indeed, the experiment showed that applied EMFs associated with TMS can be used to control behavior and generate illusions of free will.

Whereas MRI scanners and TMS devices typically emit high-intensity EMFs (> 1 Tesla), decades of research have demonstrated that much weaker intensity fields can also affect conscious experience. As evidenced by my former mentor Dr. Michael Persinger’s pioneering work with complex, low-intensity (microTesla) EMFs, some of the most personally meaningful and life-changing human experiences can be reproduced in the laboratory by appropriate stimulations of the brain. With his co-inventor, Stanley Koren, Persinger created a helmet embedded with EMF-generating solenoids that could stimulate the temporal lobes of experimental subjects with field intensities within range of the brain’s own EMFs and environmental sources.

Instead of simple EMF patterns such as sine or square waves normally associated with TMS, Persinger converted EEG recordings from patients in meditative and trance-like states who reported “experiencing God” into complex, digitized patterns that could be applied through the helmet as EMFs. In other words, he isolated the electromagnetic brain patterns of some people in an altered state of consciousness, transformed them into signals, and applied them to separate brains as information-rich signals.

If, as Persinger hypothesized, EMF patterns carried information relevant to conscious experience, the applied patterns would be expected to produce genuine cognitive effects including transmitted subjective experiences. Indeed, hundreds of participants over several decades have reported out-of-body experiences and the feeling of a “sensed presence” when exposed to the helmet and some even claimed to have encountered a higher power or deity, inevitably inspiring the device’s more popular name: the “God Helmet”.

These studies, and those listed throughout this section, clearly demonstrate that the brain is an electromagnetic organ. But what about consciousness? That too, it would seem, is fundamentally electromagnetic as it can be extracted from one brain and re-applied to another as an information-rich EMF pattern with experience-inducing consequences.

 

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/.

Biophotons carry information: Rouleau excerpt #8

Rouleau writes: Before I delineate the many reasons why the brain must be regarded as an electromagnetic organ that can functionally survive death, I will first provide a necessary but non-exhaustive definition and description of electromagnetism. There are four fundamental forces that establish the physical parameters of our Universe: the weak force, the strong force, gravity, and electromagnetism. If they were to suddenly change in amplitude or character, the laws that physicists use to describe Nature would need to be completely re-written. In fact, it is uncertain whether life could even exist given alternative cosmic circumstances.

The electromagnetic force is responsible for the attraction between protons and electrons, holding atoms together, and establishing the chemical bonds and intermolecular forces that are required for life. Protons express a positive charge, electrons express an equal but negative charge, and the two particles tend to exist in a state of balance or equilibrium when they form atoms. When a neutral atom loses an electron, thereby disturbing the balance and expressing a relative excess of protons, it becomes positively charged – also called a positive ion. 

Similarly, when a neutral atom loses a proton, it becomes a negative ion. When electrons flow through space, they generate electromagnetic fields (EMFs), which are distributed arrays of point charges in space-time that organize along invisible flux lines that are readily visualized in two dimensions with iron filings and bar magnets. When opposite charges are separated by a distance, they generate a property called polarity – which is the physical basis for both the bar magnet and the electrical properties of the cell membrane discussed in a previous section.

The quantum or irreducible unit of the EMF is the photon, which is the particle-wave we call light. Indeed, white light, radio waves, and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation are essentially the same photonic “stuff”. What gives them qualitatively different properties are their energy levels, which are proportional to the frequencies of their oscillations.

There are two related components to electromagnetic fields: the electric field, which is determined by the charge of the object or particle, and the magnetic field, which is determined by the motion of the charged object or particle. For example, the ions that align themselves across the cell’s membrane express intrinsic electric fields. When those ions move across the membrane from the outside to the inside of the cell through a channel, their moving charges generate magnetic fields. Suffice it to say that electromagnetism is a pervasive and integral force in the Universe – a necessary but by no means a special property of living organisms or the brain.

However, the scientific fields of bioelectricity and bioelectromagnetics have reliably demonstrated that cells and tissues are uniquely structured to receive and channel electromagnetic energy to signal or do work. This has been known since the time of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), who demonstrated that static electricity could be used to activate the muscles of dead frogs, suggesting our bodies functioned by endogenous analogues or “animal electricity”. More than a means to move muscles, electromagnetism is intimately linked to brain function and, as I will soon become evident, is likely the fundament of consciousness.

Returning to the task of demonstrating that the brain is an electromagnetic organ, recall that neurons, of which we have tens of billions, are highly polar cells that individually discharge electromagnetic pulses of energy called action potentials dozens of times per second. Therefore, it would be unsurprising to detect electromagnetic emissions from brain tissues at different scales of measurement. Indeed, EEGs detect brain activity by measuring voltage fluctuations across the surface of the scalp that are caused by the dynamic electric fields of thousands of cortical neurons firing in synchrony. These complex electromagnetic brain patterns are not random. Rather, they are organized according to predictable patterns that have been described as electrical “microstates”. The duration, shape, and stability of microstates are predictive of age, cognition, and disease. Current investigations are linking the brain’s multi-regional electromagnetic states or “electomes”, with diagnostic applications in neuropsychiatry.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG), which is a newer technology that measures the brain’s weak magnetic fields using highly sensitive detectors, clearly demonstrates that the brain actively emits EMFs that are detectable outside the skull and information-rich. Like EEG, MEG is used as a diagnostic instrument because the specific properties of the brain’s magnetic field emissions reflect the synchronous neuronal activity of tens of thousands of cells. Interestingly, MEG has also been applied to study neurocognitive processes in developing fetuses and was recently used to identify the neural correlates of the earliest stages of human cognitive development. One exciting possibility is that MEG may one day be used to identify the precise transition from non-conscious matter to conscious matter in the brains of developing humans.

In addition to its electric and magnetic field emissions, the human brain has been repeatedly shown to emit visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light. Distinct from bioluminescence, light emitted by biological organisms or “biophotons” are caused by chemical reactions within cells associated with energy production and are functionally linked to microtubules – the skeleton-like structures that give cells shape and their capacity to move. While photons are emitted by other tissues and species some authors have hinted at the possible existence of optical signaling channels within the human brain that operate like fiber optic cables by transmitting photons for cell-to-cell communication. As has been predicted, it would be unsurprising if neurons did perform signaling using photons as information carriers since brain exposures to artificial sources of light are known to modify neural oscillations as well as facilitate the release of neurotransmitters like glutamate and dopamine. Infrared light, for example, can stop neurons from conducting current, meaning a superimposed optical brain network may exist independent of synaptic networks.

Given recent the recent discoveries that much more information can be encoded in light than previously assumed, the possibility of light-based brain function is an increasingly interesting frontier in neuroscience research. In addition to basic amplitude and frequency modulation, information can be encoded within the direction and spacing of rotating photons. Therefore, it is possible that brain biophoton emissions carry tremendous amounts of information when emitted.

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/.

Electromagnetic force: Rouleau excerpt #7

Rouleau writes: While William James’ transmission hypothesis is appealing as a solution to the problem of survival, he did not offer a potential mechanism. Without a physical mechanism by which transmission can occur, the hypothesis cannot survive scientific scrutiny. It seems to me that there are at least two possible mechanisms by which transmission could occur in principle. The first and less likely possibility is that there exists a consciousness-specific signal or particle that interacts with the brain, imbuing it with a capacity for experience and awareness.

The famous neurophysiologist John C. Eccles – who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin for their characterization of the neuronal action potential – proposed the existence of one such particle called the “psychon” that he claimed could solve the classic mind-brain problem. The idea involved a subatomic psychon interacting with a dendron, which is a receptive appendage of a neuron. Eccles posited that psychons would act on dendrons to imbue them with conscious experience and a reverse interaction would transfer perception and memory from the neuron to the particle. Psychons would also be able to interact with each other, creating a “psychon world” separate from the brain.

While his model is interesting, is consistent with William James’ transmission hypothesis, and is appealing as a solution to the survival problem, Eccles’ psychon has never been measured. The discovery of Eccles’ consciousness-specific particle would fundamentally disrupt our understanding of physics and elevate mental processes to the status of something like a fundamental force.

However, a more likely mechanism would involve a generic physical force that has already been identified and is well-known to interact with the brain. The candidate force should be pervasive over time and space with the capacity to transmit information over long distances. The electromagnetic force satisfies all of these criteria. Electromagnetic fields define the action potential, allow brain cells to communicate wirelessly, are used as biomarkers of brain disease, and even as clinically effective neuropsychiatric treatments when patterned appropriately. Experimental applications of electromagnetic fields to the brain can cause out-of-body experiences and the sensed presence including visitations and apparitions with reports of communion with a creator or God.

In the next section, I will discuss the most significant scientific evidence in support of the joint hypotheses that 1) the transmissive functional dependence of the brain is fundamentally electromagnetic and that 2) this satisfies the criteria for the survival of human consciousness following bodily death.

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/.

Are brains transmissive? Rouleau excerpt #6

Rouleau writes: The Ingersoll Lectures, which have been hosted by the Divinity School at Harvard University since the 1890s, are delivered every year between the end of May and the beginning of December on the subject of human immortality. Consistent with requests made when it was originally endowed, lecturers can be professors, clergymen, or laypeople but should not be limited to any one group. Notable thinkers and scientists including William Osler, Alfred North Whitehead, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and Stephen Jay Gould are among the long list of distinguished speakers associated with the Ingersoll Lectures series. While the specific topics vary according to expertise, many lecturers have offered insights on the survival of human consciousness following bodily death.

In 1897, the famous “Father of American psychology” William James – who was also a notable physician, philosopher, and psychical researcher with a profound interest in the paranormal – delivered the second annual Ingersoll lecture entitled “Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine”. In his lecture, the transcript of which was published in 1898, James outlined what I submit is the definitive case for the survival of human consciousness. The main arguments put forward in the lecture are as relevant today as they were then; however, over a century of neuroscientific research has provided the benefit of empirical support, which makes his argument significantly more compelling. As I am convinced William James’ formulation of the problem of survival is critical to appreciating the proposed solution, I will summarize his lecture and its implications here. Once the concept is characterized, the remaining sections of the essay will be comprised of a systematic description of the empirical support for James’ hypothesis.

William James structured his groundbreaking lecture as a reply to two reasonable objections to the doctrine of human immortality. The first objection to which he replied is the same we concerned ourselves with in the previous section: If the brain is the seat of consciousness, how can it survive brain death and decay? After re-stating the objection, James began with a throat-clearing about the dependence of memory, thought, and consciousness on the brain:

The first of these difficulties is relative to the absolute dependence of our spiritual life, as we know it here, upon the brain. . . . How can the function possibly persist after its organ has undergone decay? . . . Every one knows that arrests of brain development occasion imbecility, that blows on the head abolish memory or consciousness, and the brain-stimulants and poisons change the quality of our ideas. . . . various special forms of thinking are functions of special portions of the brain.

When we are thinking of things seen, it is our occipital convolutions that are active; when of things heard, it is a certain portion of our temporal lobes; when of things to be spoken, it is one of our frontal convolutions. . . . For the purposes of my argument, now, I wish to adopt this general doctrine as if it were established absolutely, with no possibility of restriction. . . .Thought is a function of the brain.

Having firmly adopted the position that thought – including consciousness – is a function of the brain, James accepted the challenge of reconciling its survival with death. To that end, he explained why most of his contemporaries believed immortality, or the survival of consciousness after bodily death, was impossible and why their reasoning was flawed:

The supposed impossibility of its continuing comes from too superficial a look at the admitted fact of functional dependence. The moment we inquire more closely into the notion of functional dependence, and ask ourselves, for example, how many kinds of functional dependence there may be, we immediately perceive that there is one kind at least that does not exclude a life hereafter at all. The fatal conclusion of the physiologist flows from his assuming offhand another kind of functional dependence and treating it as the only imaginable kind.

Next, James described three types of functional dependences: productive, permissive, and transmissive. He argued that objections to human immortality – the survival of consciousness after death – are based upon the widely-held assumption that brain functions including consciousness are consequences of productive function. That is, the function is “inwardly created” or caused by endogenous neurobiological events – as is the current dogma in the modern field of neuroscience. He elaborates:

When the physiologist who thinks that his science cuts off all hope of immortality pronounces the phrase, ``Thought is a function of the brain,'' he thinks of the matter just as he thinks when he says, ``Steam is a function of the tea-kettle,'' ``Light is a function of the electric circuit,'' ``Power is a function of the moving waterfall.'' In these latter cases the several material objects have the function of inwardly creating or engendering their effects, and their function must be called productive function. Just so, he thinks, it must be with the brain. Engendering consciousness in its interior, much as it engenders cholesterin and creatin and carbonic acid, its relation to our soul's life must also be called productive function. Of course, if such production be the function, then when the organ perishes, since the production can no longer continue, the soul must surely die. Such a conclusion as this is indeed inevitable from that particular conception of the facts.

Having rejected the conclusion that consciousness necessarily arises from a productive functional dependence of the brain, James then described permissive or “releasing” function, which is derivative of Newton’s first law of motion, where function is inevitable unless obstructed by a barrier. To clarify the point, he cited the example of a crossbow, where the release of the string returns the bow to its original shape, thus firing the arrow. However, we will be primarily concerned with James’ third type of functional dependence: transmission.

In James’ view, transmissive function is like a filter or sieve that, by dint of its own structure, organizes the shape and character of existing but separate forces into parcels, units, or subdivisions of the whole. Stating his thesis, William James considered the possibility that consciousness is dependent upon a transmissive property of the brain rather than a productive one. In his own words:

In the case of a colored glass, a prism, or a refracting lens, we have transmissive function. The energy of light, no matter how produced, is by the glass sifted and limited in color, and by the lens or prism determined to a certain path and shape. Similarly, the keys of an organ have only a transmissive function. They open successively the various pipes and let the wind in the air-chest escape in various ways. The voices of the various pipes are constituted by the columns of air trembling as they emerge. But the air is not engendered in the organ. The organ proper, as distinguished from its air-chest, is only an apparatus for letting portions of it loose upon the world in these peculiarly limited shapes. My thesis is now this: that, when we think of the law that thought is a function of the brain, we are not required to think of productive function only; we are entitled also to consider . . . transmissive function.

Staying with the metaphor of transmitted light, James then asked his audience to consider the possibility that “the millions of finite streams of consciousness known to us as our private selves” are part of one infinite Thought that, like white light through a prism, is shattered into an infinite spectrum of waves. Considering the possibility that brains selectively obstruct the transmission of consciousness, and that this process explains the unique features of human individuality, James described how his proposed mechanism might track changing mental states, death, and the survival of consciousness after brain decay:

According to the state in which the brain finds itself, the barrier of its obstructiveness may also be supposed to rise or fall. It sinks so low, when the brain is in full activity, that a comparative flood of spiritual energy pours over. At other times, only such occasional waves of thought as heavy sleep permits get by. And when finally a brain stops acting altogether, or decays, that special stream of consciousness which it subverted will vanish entirely from this natural world. But the sphere of being that supplied the consciousness would still be intact; and in that more real world with which, even whilst here, it was continuous, the consciousness might, in ways unknown to us, continue still.

William James conceded that no known mechanism at the time of his lecture could explain transmissive functional dependence in brains; however, he enjoined his audience to consider that a productive mechanism had also not yet been demonstrated – a fact that remains true today despite an embarrassment of riches with regard to correlational data (e.g., neural correlates of consciousness). James then concluded that the productive theory was only regarded as more likely than the transmissive theory because it was more popular – a point that also remains true today. Finally, he described some perceived advantages of the transmission theory:

Consciousness in this process does not have to be generated de novo in a vast number of places. It exists already, behind the scenes, coeval with the world. The transmission-theory not only avoids in this way multiplying miracles, but it puts itself in touch with general idealistic philosophy better than the production-theory does. . . . It puts itself also in touch with [Gustav Fechner’s] conception of a `threshold' . . . Before consciousness can come, a certain degree of activity in the movement must be reached. . . . but the height of the threshold varies under different circumstances: it may rise or fall. When it falls, as in states of great lucidity, we grow conscious of things of which we should be unconscious at other times; when it rises, as in drowsiness, consciousness sinks in amount. . . . [and] conforms to our notion of a permanent obstruction to the transmission of consciousness, which obstruction may, in our brains, grow alternately greater or less.

James then dedicated some attention to the important point that transmissive brains could account for phenomena that are conceptually marginalized by the assumption of productive functional dependence. Specifically, he listed several psi phenomena that are made mechanistically plausible by the adoption of a theory of transmission:

The transmission-theory also puts itself in touch with a whole class of experiences that are with difficulty explained by the production-theory . . . [such] as religious conversions, providential leadings in answer to prayer, instantaneous healings, premonitions, apparitions at time of death, clairvoyant visions or impressions, and the whole range of mediumistic capacities, to say nothing of still more exceptional and incomprehensible things. . . . On the transmission-theory, they don't have to be `produced,'--they exist ready-made in the transcendental world, and all that is needed is an abnormal lowering of the brain-threshold to let them through. . . . All such experiences, quite paradoxical and meaningless on the production-theory, fall very naturally into place on the other theory. We need only suppose the continuity of our consciousness with a mother sea, to allow for exceptional waves occasionally pouring over the dam.

William James ended his lecture by addressing the second of the two objections to the doctrine of immortality: If immortality is true, and consciousness continues after death, the number of immortal beings would be unimaginably large. He quickly dismisses the objection as a failure of imagination before summarizing his view, which is potentially inclusive to all living organisms across time and space:

For my own part, then, so far as logic goes, I am willing that every leaf that ever grew in this world's forests and rustled in the breeze should become immortal. It is purely a question: are the leaves so, or not? Abstract quantity, and the abstract needlessness in our eyes of so much reduplication of things so much alike, have no connection with the subject. For bigness and number and generic similarity are only manners of our finite way of thinking.

One important point that James did not discuss was the intercompatibility of functional dependences. Based upon his descriptions, productive and transmissive functional dependences should be able to co-exist and interact within the same system. Indeed, just as James cites examples of objects or devices that express one form of functional dependence – the prism, the pipe organ, and the tea kettle – it is immediately apparent that there are equal numbers of such devices that can be said to have multiple functional dependences. Clock radios, for example, are dependent upon both electric circuits (James cites internal circuitry as productive) and the reception of transmitted information by way of their antennae. A clock radio does not create music de novo – it is a conduit for information that, when coupled to a speaker, can transduce electromagnetic waves into mechanical vibrations that are perceived as organized patterns of sound. If the clock radio were to fall and shatter or be unplugged from its power source, the electromagnetic equivalent of the music as radio waves would “survive”. Repairing the device or re-establishing its power source would seem to resuscitate the music that had never really been lost.

Therefore, it is also possible that brains, with their numerous and complex internal structures, are functionally multi-dependent, expressing both productive and transmissive properties. Just as the information content of music is preserved in the case of a broken radio, it is conceivable that the information content of experience is preserved upon the death of the brain. In this way, the highly predictive contemporary models of neurobiology do not need to be abandoned to reconcile consciousness with transmission and survival but may instead require a modest amendment.

James’ functional dependences may also be less distinct than described. After all, while he points to “steam as a function of the tea kettle”, “light as a function of the electric circuit”, and “power as a function of the waterfall” as examples of productive functional dependences, it is unclear why the causes of these processes cannot equally be attributed to external events. Is the electricity running through the light bulb’s circuit not a function of the power generator, which is a function of the waterfall, which is, in turn, a function of gravity? While it is useful to consider the proximate cause as the starting point of any process, further examination will always lead to the discovery of an ultimate cause outside of the system itself. Therefore, the concept of productive dependence is likely an artifact of our perception rather than an actual property of systems and this illusion has defined our intuitions about how brains function. In fact, all functions of the body are subject to this misapprehension. Muscles do not create heat – heat is a biproduct of twitching cells, which is itself a product of chemical reactions driven by reactants or their precursors that were at some point ingested as food. The iron in our blood that facilitates oxygen transport throughout the body was synthesized in the core of a star, not the body. Albeit a minor digression, it should always be remembered that the ultimate causes of all bodily events are not found within the body at all.

 

James, W. (1898). Human immortality: Two supposed objections to the doctrine. Houghton, Mifflin.

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/.

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/.