Do near-death experiences give good evidence for life after death?

[El_Machinae]

There are two explanations, but I cannot figure out an experiment to distinguish them.

1) the brain continues to process during the period where brain activity is deemed 'low', and such there's ongoing consciousness (in the form of hallucinations). This is akin to what we assume happens in the dreaming state.

2) the brain rapidly hallucinates a memory as it's "coming to". In other words, it was off but then forms connection as it's waking up that are interpreted as memory. This is akin to the Deja Vu phenomenon, where we experience real-time stimuli as (partially) the replay of a memory.

 

[Wolfbeckett]

There are two explanations, but I cannot figure out an experiment to distinguish them.

1) the brain continues to process during the period where brain activity is deemed 'low', and such there's ongoing consciousness (in the form of hallucinations). This is akin to what we assume happens in the dreaming state.

2) the brain rapidly hallucinates a memory as it's "coming to". In other words, it was off but then forms connection as it's waking up that are interpreted as memory. This is akin to the Deja Vu phenomenon, where we experience real-time stimuli as (partially) the replay of a memory.

Everything I've read indicates that it's actually both. The brain being deprived of oxygen to the point where you're unconscious does not mean it stops functioning entirely, it still gets SOME oxygen and parts of it keep working, we can tell this is true based on the fact that so many of these people come back at full mental capacity with no physical brain damage. Brains that are 100% deprived of oxygen start dying rapidly.

And there is also a period of delirium between when a person is unconscious and when they regain full consciousness, and in that time all kinds of things can go wrong in a person's memory. The human memory is extremely fallible, even under normal operating conditions it lies to us all the time. Think about all the reports of people having memories of alien abductions or memories of childhood abuse that never happened implanted into them while undergoing therapy. Think of all the times you've been reminiscing with old friends and found out that you have different recollections of the same events. We remember things that never happened or that happened differently and to us everyone else seems crazy, we are 100% convinced that we HAVE to be right, we remember it so clearly! Memories lying to us is normal. When our brains go through a trauma such as having limited access to oxygen for a time and being rendered unconscious, nobody should be surprised that our memories from that time will be all out of whack.

 

[Plotinus]

It's worth pointing out that this also explains the similarity of near-death experiences across cultures. They are similar not because the same objective reality is being perceived in each case, but because we're all human beings with similar brain structures and chemistry. The fact that a Hindu, a Muslim, and an agnostic may all have similar experiences doesn't prove that these experiences are veridical and that they're really experiencing life after death, any more than the fact that they all feel the same thing when they have headaches indicates that there's a Headache Monster that they're all perceiving.

 

[bhavv]

This is a great thread that I can now link to people who say 'but, but, but, NDEs!!!!!'.