Ready for some scientific heresy?  First the orthodox sermon: In a January 19, 2007 article entitled “The Mystery of Consciousness,” Steven Pinker,  Johnstone Professor of Psychology  at Harvard University, assured readers of Time magazine that “Consciousness does not reside in an ethereal soul that uses the brain like a PDA; consciousness is the activity of the brain.” Scientists had exorcised the ghost from the machine, he declared. “And when the physiological activity of the brain ceases, as far as anyone can tell the person’s consciousness goes out of existence.”

Now the heresy: Maybe it doesn’t.  Consciousness as a mere byproduct of the brain certainly remains the favored hypothesis within the scientific community. But contrary evidence clearly exists calling into question both the “mind equals brain” model and the philosophy of materialism which underpins it. This heretical neuroscience, forcefully argued in depth and detail in a new book, Irreducible Mind, is further buttressed by recent research focused on the near death experiences (NDE) of cardiac arrest patients in hospitals in Europe and the U.S.

In the 1970s and 1980s, NDE pioneers like Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring and others “retrospectively” collected anecdotal NDE reports. Many experiences were months or years old when shared, and subject to faulty or false memories. Few were verified through follow-up investigation.

But more recently, a new generation of NDE investigators has proactively set up shop in hospital intensive care units where death occurs daily, NDEs can be studied in a controlled setting, and experiencers interviewed within days of their NDE.  This new “prospective” approach has allowed NDE researchers like Sam Parnia, Pim Van Lommel, Janet Schwaninger, Bruce Greyson and Penny Sartori to scientifically put to the test the full panoply of reductionist physiological and psychological explanations offered up by skeptics to dismiss NDEs as hallucinations or mental disorders – the effects of anoxia or hypercarbia; drug/medication reactions; natural brain chemistry; temporal lobe seizures; REM intrusions; religious expectations; fear of death; mental instability; an artifact of  demographics.

Their probing has systematically identified weaknesses in each argument – including Pinker’s belief that near death experiences are “symptoms of oxygen starvation in the eyes and brain.”  

Faced with this rebuttal, skeptics can always fall back on what philosopher of science Karl Popper calls “promissory materialism.” – we don’t have the answer now, but we will eventually find one that fits our philosophy. One way to break the stalemate is to falsify through observation or experiment the “mind equals brain” assertion. This requires demonstrating persistence of consciousness – memories, cognition, emotion, self-identity, perception – during a state of verifiable clinical death.  

The NDE experiences of cardiac arrest patients are particularly promising for this purpose. As Parnia notes, “During a cardiac arrest, all three criteria of death are present,” – i.e., the heart has stopped beating, the lungs have stopped working and the brain ceases functioning. Yet some cardiac arrest survivors do describe a continuation of consciousness. E pur si muove. 

If Dr. Raymond Moody’s 1975 blockbuster Life After Life (13 million copies sold) was the last book you read on NDEs, Dr. Penny Sartori’s book can quickly bring you up to 2008. Sartori spent 14 years working as a staff nurse in the Intensive Therapy Unit (the equivalent of an ICU in American hospitals) at Morriston Hospital, Swansea, Wales, where she conducted the doctoral research which underpins her book, The Near-Death Experiences of Hospitalized Intensive Care Patients.  

Sartori’s book, presents in scientific detail the results of the largest prospective NDE study ever undertaken in the U.K., involving survivors admitted to the ITU between Jan. 1998-Jan. 2003 for elective and emergency surgery, trauma, medical emergencies and cardiac arrest. Skeptics can carefully examine and evaluate her study design; the patient sample; the questionnaire and the tools used (e.g. Greyson’s NDE Scale); the ten hypotheses tested; and her data analysis and results.  

This is serious, credible science, presented hard and dry. Here’s a sample of what we know about Patient  #7, for example, before and during his cardiac arrest and NDE:  “Sex: male. Age: 73. Religion: agnostic. Occupation: steel worker…. Clinical details: Heart rhythm: SVT, VT. Treatment: CPR, DC shock. Drugs: atropine, adrenaline, adenosine 12 mg x2, amiodarone. O2 given via face mask (ambu bag during arrest). Revived GCS 15/15. Arterial blood gas: 17.49 O2 100%. Post-arrest: PH:7.518, PO2: 16.72, PCO2:2.11. Glu;9.9, Na:140, K:3.5…”

The patient had a cardiac arrest in the presence of the admitting doctor, was resuscitated, immediately regained consciousness and was not confused. He was not given any sedative or painkilling drugs, and reported an NDE during the time he was unconscious which involved seeing his deceased father.  

Pinker notwithstanding, “as far as anyone can tell” the survival of consciousness remains a scientific possibility. The simply curious will enjoy Sartori’s concise history of NDE reports and the 144 pages of engrossing, verbatim interviews with NDE and OBE experiencers (including our agnostic steel worker).

Collectively, their stories helped Sartori reach her contrarian conclusion: “According to the materialistic view of the world, life after death cannot be possible. This research suggests that the materialistic beliefs are no longer valid, and require revision and expansion."