near death experiences Flashcards
near death experiences
- most often understood by those who have them & by some who investigate them scientifically, to be evidence for the existence of a soul surviving death
- commonly begin with out of body experiences from vantage point of ceiling
structure of near death experiences
- seeing a bright light
- feeling of peace & serenity
- meeting relatives who died previously
- urge to return to body
- some may get no further than out of body experience but others may experience some or all parts of structure
- some NDEs are religion/culture specific so Christians will see Jesus/Christian saints whilst other religions will see their religious figures
negative interpretation of near death experiences
- neuroscientific studies of NDE generally ‘reductive’ meaning whole experience is understood as a product of the dying brain with no deeper meaning
- in support of this, neuroscientists point out fact that NDE is culture/religion specific as Christians won’t see Buddhist figures nor will Sikhs see Jewish figures so NDE only reflects what you expect to see
- those who remember an NDE don’t actually die so many say NDEs aren’t evidence for what happens after death
positive interpretation of near death experience
- not as popular as source of study for a religious group for reason they don’t give exclusive support to claims of any one religion over the other. those believing NDE are real count this in its favour
- one indication they’re real is there have been examples of people giving detailed sighted experiences despite being blind from birth
bundle theory
- we cannot explain our survival through time by referring to a person and no ‘person’ exists
- there are just bundles of mental states (experiences) tied together by the causal relation of memory
- we call these bundles ‘lives’
presented by Derek Parfit
bundle theory - possibility of continued personal experience after death described in limited ways
- people don’t live after death since physical body and brain die and a person’s memory/personality die with them
- can be a psychological connectedness with children and close friends in sense the person’s influence on them continues for as long as the person is remembered
- no deeper level of the self that remains the same
how does Parfitt’s budnle theory link to Buddhism?
- Buddhism sees a person as an ever-changing combination of mental/physical energies as does Parfitt but also teaches that this continuous process of change continues through what we regard as death
BUDDHISM & REBIRTH - person who dies neither same nor different from one whose reborn as new life arises from last in same way futures comes from the past
- doesn’t show rebirth is ‘true’ but does suggest that a belief in some form of personal survival is consistent with idea that the self is a ‘bundle’
survival by uploading brain info to diff platform
Dennett suggestion on brain & info
- idea that info presently stored in brain could be uploaded onto a different platform, such as a computer but does give a possible model for personal survival beyond death
survival by uploading brain info to diff platform
what does Dennett mean by self as a ‘center of narrative gravity’
- if you think of yourself as a center of gravity your existence depends on persistence of that narrative which could survive much but if what you are is organisation of info that structured your bodies control system then could survive death of body as like a program that can survive destruction of computer
with Dennett’s approach
- your experiences/memories are organisation of info
- immortality is in principle possible through means of storing that info on another platform
- depending on platform used, the stored info of your life could presumably be psychologically continuous with what went before
comparison of Dennett & Swinburne approach
DENNETT:
- info third-person objective
- wants scientific approach to consciousness & since science uses objective third-person measures science cannot verify conscious states
- in Dennett model, person is sum totl of info stream & nothing above/over info itself
- functionalist approach means a persons ‘narrative’ may continue on another platform
SWINBURNE:
- self characterised by first-person subjective accounts of its mental states
- in Swinburne model, person isn’t the info stream itself but subject-self
- what can survive death is subject self, the soul perhaps resurrected in same or another body because survival makes no sense without survival of person’s mind
