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Kirata -> RE: Atheists fed up? Believe it! - Guest Voices - The Washington Post (6/23/2011 7:15:04 PM)
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Unless we're talking past each other, the issue here is whether or not consciousness arises solely from brain function and is totally dependent upon it. In other words, whether consciousness is possible without brain function.
So let's see if we can set some things aside by stipulating to a few points of agreement. Let's stipulate that consciousness and the brain are tightly coupled, at least in normal circumstances. Let's further stipulate that individuals can be caused to have experiences artificially, by a variety of interventions ranging from the direct electrical stimulation of brain tissues to various chemicals. And let's also stipulate that in some cases, particularly with certain of those chemicals, e.g., LSD, Psilocybin, DMT, the experiences that arise have qualities which are (descriptively at least) "mystical," i.e., visions of a clear white light, feelings of being at one with the universe, etc.
By what logic are you relating these various cases where the subjects are conscious and have active brain function to the question of whether consciousness is possible without brain function?
And those aside, despite the National Geographic headline consider the following from the article body:
The one difficulty in arguing that CO2 is the cause is that in cardiac arrests, everybody has high CO2 but only 10 percent have NDEs," said neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. What's more, in heart attack patients, Fenwick said, "there is no coherent cerebral activity which could support consciousness, let alone an experience with the clarity of an NDE."
What you have actually cited here is evidence that lucid consciousness is possible without brain function. The article continues...
The main alternative is that near-death experiences are "evidence of consciousness becoming separated from the physical substrate of the brain, possibly even a glimpse of an afterlife," the University of London's French noted. But for him, at least, "the latest results argue strongly against such a hypothesis."
The results "argue strongly against." Fucking unbelievable. Straight in the face of the data.
Evidence indeed, that one, thanks. But not, I think, of what you intended on either count.
K.
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