The Survivalist Interpretation of Recent
Studies into the NDE by Titus Rivas
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Reprinted by permission
from:
The Journal of Religion
and Psychical Research, 26, 1, 27-31. January
2003.
ABSTRACT:
There is serious
evidence for veridical perceptions during the
stage of flat electroencephalogram (EEG) in
so-called near-death experiences (NDEs). This
paper addresses common counter-hypotheses for
a survivalist interpretation of these experiences.
The only possible alternative which would account
for veridical NDEs is the false memory through
retrocognition-hypothesis. It is shown why this
alternative is less parsimonious than a straightforward
survivalist interpretation of NDEs.
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| Table
of Contents |
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| 1. Introduction |
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The near-death experience recently
gained an increased scientific respectability by the publication
of
an article in The Lancet authored
by Dr. Pim van Lommel
of the Rijnstaate Hospital at Arnhem (the Netherlands) and
his collaborators (Lommel, et al. 2001). Their prospective
work with cardiac patients who were successfully resuscitated
after cardiac arrest, resembles similar research by Dr.
Sam Parnia at the University of Southampton and his colleagues
(Parnia et al., 1998).
Both
Van Lommel and Parnia have concluded that NDEs are real
and that they cannot be explained by physiological or psychological
causes (alone). Moreover, they have both accepted the implication
that consciousness is not destroyed when our brain activity
ceases, but that there is a continuity beyond brain coma
and therefore probably after brain death as well. Consciousness
does not ultimately depend on brain activity for its very
existence, which makes it downright irrational to take for
granted the idea that it would be obliterated after the
brain ceases to exist as a physical system.
Materialists
(I mean the non-reductive ones who accept the reality of
consciousness during physical life) generally see consciousness
as an epiphenomenon or correlate of brain activity. For
the question of survival, it is therefore sufficient to
show that there is no ultimate existential dependence of
the mind on such brain processing. The theory of ultimate
mental dependence on cerebral functioning is refuted by
the survival of consciousness after the cessation of (cortical)
brain processes, regardless of whether that cessation is
temporary or final.
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| 2. Near-Death
Experiences and Materialist Theories of the Mind |
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If it can be shown that consciousness
is present even though the brain processes which following
materialist theories are supposedly known to be responsible
for it have ceased, those materialist theories can safely
be considered as inadequate. Now, apriori there can be several
responses to the challenge that is posed to materialism
and epiphenomenalism by the recent NDE-findings:
a.
Methodological scepticism:
This is the usual response by skeptics whenever they are
confronted by results that go against their (unquestionably
closed-minded) world view. However, as the scientific reputation
of the researchers involved in the recent studies certainly
seems impeccable, and as their work has been accepted as
worthy of publication in prestigious journals such as The
Lancet, it may be safely assumed that the standard skeptic
objection is simply baseless in this case. Research into
NDEs cannot be dismissed anymore as being pseudo-scientific.
b.
Flaws in the specific interpretation
of the results: Some critics, such as C.C. French
think that the findings of these studies should not be interpreted
in a survivalist manner. It certainly seems to be the case
that some individual patients are fully conscious during
a flat EEG, but they really are not. The memories of the
NDE they claim to have had are simply false memories (French,
2001). This can be further elaborated in two ways:
(1) Patients who claim they have had an
NDE simply suffer from some kind of self-deception. They
never experienced anything like it, but they just believe
they did. At a subconscious level, they have constructed
a fantasy accompanied by images and feelings, and they project
this fantasy into their memory as if it concerned a real
experience of the (imaginary) event while it occurred.
(2) Claimants
of NDEs did indeed have a real experience before they came
to, but not during their flat EEG. It happened during the
seconds or minutes before they lost consciousness or during
the last few moments before they fully awoke from their
coma, and it was temporally distorted in their memory as
if it really took place during the flat EEG.
Against both these criticisms
researchers stress that patients are reported to have had
veridical impressions of events that took place inside but
also outside the room that contained their physical bodies
and during the stage in which their brains showed a flat
EEG. Therefore, any hypothesis that claims that these people
simply deceive themselves must account for these experiences.
It is very convenient for skeptics that such experiences,
which seem clearly related to extrasensory perception (ESP)
as studied by parapsychologists, are still quite controversial
for many scientists, so that they are obviously tempted
to dismiss them out of hand. However, the evidence for such
veridical experiences (or memories of experiences) is growing
and its quality is also increasing (Ring, 1998; Rivas, 2000;
Abdalla, 2002). So unless we wish to remain hard line skeptics
at any cost, it seems wise to take them very seriously.
What
are the implications of real veridical experiences related
to events that happened during a flat EEG? In psychical
research we know two categories of ESP that relate to a
time factor. First, there is precognition which in this
context would boil down to an experience of an event which
took place during the stage of flat EEG before that experience
took place. In this case it would mean that a patient does
not precognitively experience an event which - according
to the false-memory theory - (unlike, say, the case of a
Dunne-effect type of dream) he will eventually experience
through ESP while it is taking place, because the theory
holds that there would be no awareness of any events whatsoever
during the stage of flat EEG. More importantly, the precognitive
experiences should occur before the patient loses consciousness
or at least before he enters the stage of flat EEG, whereas
he should lose all memory of having had such a precognitive
vision after he has come to.
Therefore, I personally cannot
take this very far-fetched possibility seriously and I think
we should be confident in dismissing the precognitive variant
of the false memory theory.
The other time-related form of
ESP is called retrocognition, i.e. knowledge acquired through
ESP of past events. The retrocognitive variant of the false
memory hypothesis interprets memories of veridical experiences
during the stage of flat EEG as follows. Patients with an
NDE subconsciously use ESP to get knowledge of past events
which happened during their coma, and project that knowledge
into their false memories during the last moments before
they regain consciousness. The theory needs to hold that
all patients with veridical experiences during their flat
EEG were somehow motivated to create a fantasy and include
in that fantasy false memories of real events through the
aid of retrocognition. This means that during the moments
between their flat EEG and their awakening from it, some
patients are subconsciously motivated to use retrocognition
to deceive themselves about their lack of consciousness
during their flat EEG.
Retrocognition
is a very strange hypothesis for NDEs, because it implies
that a patient would not use ESP to perceive events that
happen between the stage of flat EEG and complete awakening,
but would instead focus on events that have already taken
place. It cannot explain cases of NDEs in which there is
paranormal perception of events that took place during flat
EEG but also of events which occurred during the awakening
process itself and in which such a perception is experienced
by the patient as part of a coherent and continuous stream
of consciousness.
An even
more fatal weakness of this theory is that it uses a very
unmaterialistic concept - retrocognition - to uphold a materialistic
theory. Even if it were true, it simply could not be defended
by a (reductive or non-reductive) materialist, at least
not in the mainstream sense of this term. By its very nature,
the retrocognitive false memory theory needs to be part
of a broader radical dualistic theory about the mind-brain
relation. It might be defended by the so called "animistic"
school of thought within the parapsychological tradition,
which promotes the explanation of possible evidence for
survival after death in terms of ESP (or psychokinesis).
However, it is very ironic that even a hard line animist
like Hans Bender (1983, page 148) concluded that the ESP
needed to explain veridical experiences during NDEs is in
itself suggestive of survival after death.
In any case, if veridical memories
of events during flat EEG are taken seriously, we must leave
the realm of (conventional) materialist theorizing about
mind-brain relations. After that, we have to ask ourselves
which theory is simpler or more parsimonious: a dualist
theory which holds that the memories of events during flat
EEG are false memories, constructed via retrocognition,
or a dualist theory which holds that such memories simply
are real memories based on real experiences. As dualists,
we can no longer consider the real memory theory as less
parsimonious just because it would imply survival, because
- as even animistic champion Hans Bender acknowledges- at
least some form of survival is implied by any serious radical
dualist (and therefore also any animistic) theory. Therefore,
I conclude that the false memory-theory is simply more complicated
(i.e. less parsimonious) than necessary. In order to avoid
the conclusion that consciousness survives death, it needs
to postulate a mechanism which is only plausible within
a parapsychological theory which ultimately implies at least
some form of postmortem survival of the mind. So it really
is a theory which is more complicated than a straightforward
survivalist theory. It implies both survival and a strange,
unknown kind of retrospective falsification of memory through
retrocognition.
Therefore,
in my opinion, we should only adopt the “false memory
through retrocognition”-theory after it has been empirically
shown that memories of NDEs must generally be false. It's
the animists (or moderate survivalists) who have to show
the (radical) survivalists wrong in this case, certainly
not the other way round. It's just a question of parsimony.
The radical survivalist theory is the most parsimonious
exhaustive interpretation of NDEs and it can be falsified
by evidence for a more complex theory such as the “false
memory through retrocognition”-theory.
c.
Adaptation of mainstream materialistic
neuropsychological theory concerning the present-day registrability
of neural activity needed for consciousness
The
last materialist response (defended for example by Karl
Jansen, a psychiatrist known for his attempts of artificially
producing experiences which resemble NDEs) to the recent
evidence for NDEs is that the memories are indeed real memories,
but that a hypothetical residual and as yet non-measurable
level of brain activity can still account for them (Abdalla,
2002). Of course, the veridical memories of events that
took place in or outside the patient's room during his flat
EEG, are usually ignored by this theory. If they are not,
they should be seen as mental activities which can be “embodied”
in unusually low-leveled brain activity.
The problem with this theory
is that there is (by definition) absolutely no evidence
for it. Theorists seem to be quite content with pointing
at unsuitable analogies such as certain types of sleep EEG,
but no acceptable close empirical parallels have been presented
so far. For instance, during most vivid dreams there is
rapid eye movement (REM). As Pim van Lommel points out,
if we accept NDEs as real experiences during flat EEG, we
also have to accept that patients experience normal, full-blown
and even heightened conscious mental activity in them. If
critics want to explain this away by a still unknown type
of residual neural activity, they have to present parallels
which involve normal (lucid) or heightened conscious mental
activity and which can at the same time be satisfactorily
explained by known residual neural activity. Otherwise,
we must conclude that the theory is based on nothing more
than unfounded speculation! It is not forbidden to look
for immunizations of a cherished, well-founded theory against
apparently falsifying results, but such immunizations should
of course be plausible and based on acceptable data. As
far as I know, there is no serious evidence for the residual
cerebral activity-theory as a counter theory for survival.
That is precisely the reason that Pim van Lommel (personal
communication) simply rejects it as having no scientific
basis.
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| 3. Bibliography |
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Abdalla, M. (2002). Cardioloog Pim van Lommel haalt
bijna-dood ervaringen uit het donker. Paravisie,
17, 13-27. |
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Bender, H. (1983). Zukunftsvisionen, Kriegsprophezeiungen,
Sterbeerlebnisse. Munich: R. Piper Verlag. |
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French, C.C. (2001). Dying to know the truth: visions
of a dying brain, or false memories? The Lancet,
358, 9298, 2010. |
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Lommel, P. van, Wees, R. van, Meyers, V., &
Elfferich, I. (2001). Near-death experience in survivors
of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands.
The Lancet, 358, 9298, 2039-2044. |
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Parnia, S., Waller, D.G., Yeates, R., & Fenwick,
P. (2001). A qualitative and quantitative study
of the incidence, features and aetiology of near
death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation,
48, 149-156. |
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Ring, K. (1998). Lessons From The Light: What We
Can Learn From the Near-Death Experience. New York:
Insight Books. |
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Rivas, T. (2000). Herinneringen aan een periode
tussen twee levens. Prana, 120, 33-38. |
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4.
Acknowledgements |
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| I'm grateful to Dr. Pim van Lommel,
Anny Stevens-Dirven and Pieter van Wezel, MA, and Dr. Donald
R. Morse for their useful comments. |
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| 5. Reprint
request information |
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| Send reprint requests to: |
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| Titus Rivas, "Athanasia",
Darrenhof 9, 6533 RT, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
titusrivas@hotmail.com |
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