An answer to to this question would change the course of human history. For the believers of many religions, the soul moves on to the next life. For non-believers, death is the end and there is nothing else. Issue #307 of Fortean Times (one of my two favorite magazines, the other being the Christian Science Monitor) has a piece on page 16 that discusses exactly what happens after we die. The part that jumped out at me was this.
If all brain activity has ceased, where and how are the memories recalled by surviving cardiac patients being laid down? This was the point aptly raised by Dr Shushant Meshram, a neurophysiologist and sleep researcher from India who was speaking at the conference on precognition in dreams. His own suggested hypothesis is that our brains contain a non-physical component, which is involved with both NDE and other psi experiences. Certainly, there is much scope for further research here.
A non-physical component found through research? Think of it...scientific evidence of the soul. Consider for a moment the rapid and exponential rate at which technology is exploding into the world. Given that new understandings are coming more quickly these days, I think we are indeed going to get a more scientific explanation for the human soul.
And our lives are going to change forever.
2 comments:
Brain activity doesn't cease during near-death experiences. Check out this article in the Chicago Tribune, or this article. The "white aura" of light appears to be due to a sudden burst of brain activity that even rats experience when they're dying.
One of the reasons people suffer brain damage when they have heart attacks or drown, for example, is that the brain doesn't stop functioning: it keeps using oxygen, which quickly kills it.
There are many cases of people who have been clinically dead for more than the standard four minutes that's supposed to mean curtains. Anna Bågenholm, a doctor in Sweden, was clinically dead (from "circulatory arrest") for three hours and was revived without any brain damage. The reason: her brain shut down, stopped using oxygen, and therefore didn't burn itself out. She took a long time to recover and had some longer-term nerve damage in the extremities, but she returned to work as a radiologist in the same hospital where her life was saved.
This episode of Nova, starting at about the 13 minute mark, has stories about more people whose core body temperatures were drastically lowered, and some interesting information about new methods for preserving organs for transplantation that use vitrification instead of freezing.
Lowering body temperatures has been found to protect victims of stroke and heart attack from brain damage, and scientists are looking for ways to safely lower body temperature to improve survival rates in all such patients.
These findings seem to indicate that there's nothing mystical or magical about living and dying: the brain and body can, under the right conditions, be turned off and on with no long-term damage.
Nikto,
A "white light" or "visit to heaven/hell" near death experience is not evidence for a soul. The "white light" experience can be explained away as you've described. And "visit" experiences are not veritical, in other words, there is no way to verify the truth of the experience.
However, there are recorded and verified incidents where a person describes leaving their body and being able to give detailed descriptions of things they could not possibly have known by any physical means. For example, a boy who was taken to the hospital with meningitis was able to describe his family's preparations to leave in detail (after he was already on his way to the hospital in the ambulance) and details of the hospital moving a girl about 12 years old to make room for him before he arrived.
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