Review - Consciousness Beyond Life, by Pim van Lommel

Then, death, so call’d, is but old matter dress’d
In some new figure, and a vary’d vest:
Thus all things are but alter’d, nothing dies;
And here, and there th’unbody’d spirit flies.
-Ovid

Materialism has ruled neuroscience for quite a while now. If you've checked out our review of The Spiritual Brain, you know that there is currently a large divide between mainstream neuroscience, which rests on the framework that every mental experience carries a biological corrlate -- and those on the fringe who insist our "mind" operates on a more intangible level.

Basically, materialism states that the brain can be reduced to biology. Every sensation, perception, thought and emotion has a neuronal equivalent somewhere within the brain. Consciousness is simply a result of -- or perhaps, an emergent property of -- the underlying biological processes. In this world-view, consciousness is entirely dependent upon a functional brain and that when you die, you're most likely to simply snuff out and experience nothing...ever again. The idealist/dualist camp proposes that the mind exists, but in a form that we cannot measure or observe. To the dualist, the possibility of some kind of consciousness following death is entirely possible -- and to Pim Van Lommel, author of Consciousness Beyond Life, entirely likely.

Pim Van Lommel

Patients who have experienced a Near-Death Experience (NDE) claim to have experienced a conscious decoupling from the body. They reportedly feel consciousness loosing itself from the lifeless body on the operating table, viewing objects and hearing conversations they otherwise could not possibly have experienced -- and a host of other post-life experiences. Often, the individual suddenly becomes extremely elated. The cliche of experiencing some kind of visual tunnel, with darkness being closer to the side of our world; a lighter side on the opposite end -- and a deep connectedness to all of life. Many who experience an NDE completely lose the fear of death and undergo dramatic life-transformation as a result of having experienced a quasi-death-state.

Mostly, people who reported an NDE were thought to be (at best) elaborating and embellishing from a confused state -- or (at worst) downright insane. However, because of the improvements made with resuscitation devices and techniques in hospitals, it's become more possible that patients will experience one. Van Lommel proposes that NDEs offer irrefutable evidence that the mind exists independently of the brain and offer hope that consciousness can survive well into the state we know of as death.

Ideas Addressed:
--Is there consciousness after death?
--Are Near-Death Experiences scientific bunkum?
--Does consciousness have a biological basis?
--What happens in the brain when the heart stops?
--Where does the continuity of the constantly changing body come from?
--How can we explain long-term memory if the molecular composition of the neurons’ cell membrane is completely renewed every two weeks?

An in-depth review about the many theories concerning near-death experiences.
Fights for the legitimacy of the immaterialist world-view well.
Raises some of the irrefutable facts concerning immaterialism that, despite materialism’s best efforts, will not go away.

Occasionally makes highly dubious claims based on flimsy evidence.
Some hypotheses seem like the penthouse in a house of cards.
Omits crucial information at times.
Sometimes confuses pseudoscience with real science.

What’s more likely – that because we don’t have equipment that can measure subtle-enough brain activity that it’s not actually there? Or that an immaterial soul is present that exerts itself via electromagnetic disturbance on physical matter?
Can quantum physics explain consciousness?

Favorite Quote(s):
“No one physiological or psychological model by itself explains all the common features of near-death experiences…. The paradoxical occurrence of heightened, lucid awareness and logical thought processes during a period of impaired cerebral perfusion [blood flow to the brain] raises particularly perplexing questions for our current understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain function…. A clear sensorium and complex perceptual processes during a period of apparent clinical death challenge the concept that consciousness is localized exclusively in the brain.”

“During a cardiac arrest the cerebral cortex, thalamus, hippocampus, and brain stem as well as all connections between them stop functioning, as we have seen, which prevents information from being integrated and differentiated—a prerequisite for communication and thus for the experience of consciousness. The experience of consciousness should be impossible during a cardiac arrest. All measurable electrical activity in the brain has been extinguished and all bodily and brain-stem reflexes are gone. And yet, during this period of total dysfunction, some people experience a heightened and enhanced consciousness, known as an NDE.”

“The computer does not produce the Internet any more than the brain produces consciousness.”

Van Lommel begins by explaining the prevalence and common factors of NDEs. Several typical aspects will reportedly indicate an NDE:

1. The ineffability of the experience
2. A feeling of peace and quiet; pain is gone
3. The awareness of being dead, sometimes followed by a noise
4. An out-of-body experience (OBE); from a position outside and above their bodies, people witness their own resuscitation or operation
5. A dark space, experienced by only 15 percent of people as frightening; people are pulled toward a small pinpoint of light in this dark space, which they describe as: A tunnel experience; they are drawn rapidly toward the light A frightening NDE; approximately 1 to 2 percent of people linger in this dark space and experience their NDE as frightening (also known as a hell experience)
6. The perception of an unearthly environment, a dazzling landscape with beautiful colors, gorgeous flowers, and sometimes also music
7. Meeting and communicating with deceased persons, mostly relatives
8. Seeing a brilliant light or a being of light; experiencing complete acceptance and unconditional love and gaining access to a deep knowledge and wisdom
9. The panoramic life review, or review of life from birth: people see their entire life flash before them; there appears to be no time or distance, everything happens at once, and people can talk for days about a life review that lasted only a few minutes
10. The preview or flash forward: people have the impression that they are witness to part of the life that is yet to come; again, there is no time or distance
11. The perception of a border: people are aware that if they cross this border or limit they will never be able to return to their body
12. The conscious return to the body, accompanied by great disappointment at having something so beautiful taken away

So what does the research about near-death experiences tell us?

Scientists do everything they can to explain the NDE with the help of existing theories and models and often end up giving a rather one-sided and simplified account of the NDE in an attempt to reconcile the comprehensive phenomenon with existing approaches. This has resulted in theories that can account for one or more aspects of the NDE but not for the complex phenomenon in its entirety.

The most common physiological explanation is acute oxygen-deficiency within the brain caused by cardiac arrest. Van Lommel counters that situations incurring NDEs do not always involve dramatic blood-changes and that low oxygen within only some areas of the brain cannot explain all of the aspects characteristic of an NDE. This is true -- but Van Lommel does not mention whether a combination of oxygen-deprived brain regions could potentially create such an effect. He only refutes specific areas lacking oxygen as providing the entire NDE.

Oxygen deficiency is accompanied by an increase in carbon dioxide in the body. This increased level of carbon dioxide in the blood has been cited as a possible cause of NDE. Over fifty years ago the Hungarian neurologist Ladislas Meduna, attempting a kind of treatment for his patients, asked people to breathe in carbon dioxide. Some experienced a sense of separation from the body, with occasional reports of a bright light, a tunnel, a sense of peace, or memory flashes. These images were quite rare, were usually extremely fragmented, and never involved a life review or an encounter with deceased persons. No process of life change followed.16 In other words, inhaling carbon dioxide does not cause some of the characteristic NDE elements.

The most obvious rebuttal is that not all NDEs involve a life-review. Nevertheless, having claimed to have vanquished the oxygen hypothesis, Van Lommel also cuts down the argument of other situations - like drug trips - which also conjure experiences close to an NDE (like detachment from the body, closeness with a cosmic and universal force, elation and happiness, etc). The most obvious rebuttal to this claim is that a cause can be ascribed to the experience. The moment you come down from a trip, you realize that all those fanciful images you witnessed were the result of a brain in crisis during neurochemical changes. But after experiencing an NDE, the realization that one was close to death with no other known cause seems fodder for claiming the experience as a postmortem consciousness. Van Lommel never considers this possibility.

Van Lommel concludes that physiological explanations cannot explain all of the facets of an NDE simultaneously and therefore fail. However, he does state earlier that not every NDE caters to all aspects of the typical experience, but still expects physiological explanations to be all-encompassing. The simplest conclusion is that some combination of the physiological explanations could be closest to the truth.

But I'll admit -- while I am mostly a materialist, there are some irrefutal facts that Van Lommel raises which simply cannot be ignored. These facts cannot yet be reconciled with the view that the brain creates consciousness and that your mind is simply a piece of brain-matter. Let me run down the primary evidence that makes me consider the possibility that there's a nonphysical "mind", potentially even a soul, laying dormant within the biology.