A summary: Believers in the existence of an immaterial soul that allows people’s mind to leave the body and even function after death often cite NDE’s as evidence for their position. One particularly famous example is the story of a woman named Maria, who reportedly left her body and floated outside the hospital during a cardiac arrest. She reported seeing a shoe on the ledge of a 3rd storey window, which was later found. However, there are other explanations for her experience that do not require supernatural explanation, which I discuss.
All these NDE stories remind me of an amusing Yogi Berra anecdote which I am paraphrasing:
Yogi was born in St. Louis but played his entire career with the Yankees (this was back in the day when team loyalty was an important part of the sport). Being equally proud of St. Louis and New York and an icon in both cities, Yogi was once asked, “Yogi, where do you want to be buried when you die, St. Louis or New York?” to which Yogi replied, “Surprise me.”
I am more puzzled by what dualists think happens to the Mind when the brain is knocked unconscious. It I walk along paying too little attention, and my head runs into a tree limb and I fall down unconscious, what does my Mind do during the time I am “out”? Is it also suddenly unconscious?
Well, it often doesn’t. Many who have had a loved one develop dementia will be familiar with the experience that. while the person’s body still exists, the person themselves no longer does.
The typical explanation is along these lines. Decide for yourself if you find it convincing.
(T)he evidence from NDE suggests that all cognitive faculties, including memory, reside in an autonomous mind, a nonmaterial field of consciousness that is ordinarily united intimately with the brain and body. Only during extraordinary events such as NDE does it separate from the physical body and operate for a time independent of it. When united with the body, the mind must conform to the physical limitations – including disabilities – of the body. In the present view, the brain mediates cognitive faculties with the mind, which enables a person to be onscious while in the body. Although the mind is nonmaterial, the mediation must work >through some sort of physical interaction with the brain.
I went through this with my father. We were fortunate that there were no personality changes, so he was still the same person. Aphasia hit him hard though, first making it hard for him to form sentences, later taking away all purposeful speech. He could sometimes speak unintentionally, which may indicate a different pathway for speech that wasn’t affected, but when he tried to speak the words wouldn’t come out.
Last last words he spoke to me, in one of those unintentional moments about a year before his death, were “I’m still in here, somewhere.”
The lesson for all of you with living parents is, ask to them about the end-of-life care they want while they are still able to talk about it.
I’m going to toot my universal health care horn since this is a real sore spot with me. I retired as an attorney after 32 years of practice, a portion of which involved elder care. Mr. Eastwood is correct that the end-of-life care issue needs to be put on the table. But not just with one’s parents–we need a nationwide conversation about it.
My mother died of Alzheimer’s two years ago after an agonizing 12+ years from her initial diagnosis. If we had not been fortunate enough to find an excellent state facility dedicated to memory care, every dime of my mother’s estate and then some would have gone to “end-of-life” care. Long term care insurance is still something that the majority of people do not have, because it is cost prohibitive and the average person off the street doesn’t have sophisticated estate planning that takes issues like end-of-life care into consideration. For example, and Unbeknownst to most people, Medicare does not cover long term care despite the fact that most people think that it will. In fact, the average person doesn’t even understand the distinction between Medicare and Medicaid.
I have read that the predicted incidence of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia will conservatively reach at least 50% of boomers, the majority of whom are unprepared for retirement, let alone long term health care. Without some type of public sector long term health care solution, we are headed for a catastrophe. Some, especially good doctors that actually give a damn about their patients, know that we are already there as they scramble to find placements for their elderly patients. Unfortunately the health care insurance industry, Pharma and for-profit hospital and skilled nursing corporations have resisted any efforts to address this up-coming health care mess…