Hi eeryone,
I don't know why the earlier two posts of ekim and myself were deleted from the old NDE thread. But in the process I noticed the article that I had linked in 2020. This seems to be a very good one. I am linking it here again fyi.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00209/full***********
Science exists to refute dogmas; nevertheless, dogmas may be introduced when undemonstrated scientific axioms lead us to reject facts incompatible with them. Several studies have proposed psychobiological interpretations of near-death experiences (NDEs), claiming that NDEs are a mere byproduct of brain functions gone awry; however, relevant facts incompatible with the ruling physicalist and reductionist stance have been often neglected.
Reductionism is a good and powerful tool we should make a good use of, but it is only a tool, like a knife, which can be used for both saving a life or killing a man. The reductionist approach is essential for studying areas of the brain and mechanisms involved in specific functions, but it looks to be blind to the phenomenality of experiences, meanings, values, and their impact on human life and culture, which remain on the dark side of the reductionistic moon. Here it is only worth mentioning how the relationship between mind and brain, the so-called “hard problem,” is still an unsolved problem
The whole of data here reported indicates an increasing need for a broader scientific approach to consciousness and other non-ordinary activities of mind, including those belonging to the suspicious areas of transcendence and spirituality, with their still misunderstood physiology. This might be the case with NDEs as well, where taking a priori the content of such awkward experiences as exclusive expression of brain pathology and worthless epiphenomena of brain circuitry might lead to misleading results.
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Cheers.
Sriram
