0:07

Welcome to Mortality Matters, a podcast

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about conceptual issues in the philosophy

0:12

of death and the meaning of life. I am your host, Matthew Jernberg.

0:22

What happens to us after we die? Is there an afterlife for us to go to?

0:26

Or is death the end? Suppose you were on the fence about it.

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What kind of evidence would

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count so as to figure this out?

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The observations of others might be

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useful, and as it turns out, some

0:37

claim to have gone to an afterlife

0:37

of some sort or another, and return

0:41

to tell the tale they have had. What can be described as

0:43

a near death experience.

0:46

But are near death experiences,

0:46

really evidence of the afterlife.

0:50

In this episode, I'm covering chapter

0:50

eight of John Martin Fisher's book,

0:54

death Immortality and Meaning In Life. Near Death Experiences Occur

0:56

in Situations in which an

0:59

individual's life is in jeopardy. And then only to a small percent of people

1:02

they characteristically have some sort

1:06

of out of body experience or some kind of

1:06

life review, and many who have had near

1:12

death experiences report traveling towards

1:12

a light in a dark tunnel or some kind of

1:17

voyage or sense of disembodied traversal.

1:21

So in this chapter and the. John Martin Fisher gives a shorter

1:23

version of his arguments that

1:27

he spends a whole book on with

1:27

his co-author, Benjamin Mitchell

1:31

Yellen, in near death experiences,

1:31

understanding visions of the afterlife.

1:36

So in this chapter, Fisher reviews

1:36

the near death experiences of

1:40

a few different people such as,

1:40

even Alexander Colton Burpo, Alex

1:46

Malarkey, Pam Reynolds, and others.

1:49

They all have very similar content, such

1:49

as an out of body experience and traveling

1:54

towards a light during a dark tunnel. So the details of any particular case

1:56

is not super relevant for my purpose.

2:01

What does matter is there seems to

2:01

be a general claim that these occur

2:06

in contexts in which the person is

2:06

near death, typically in surgery

2:10

or is in a coma or in some sort of

2:10

condition where their brain is offline.

2:16

Hence the thought is there's a

2:16

disembodied detachment from one's

2:22

body in which one has experiences

2:22

independently of one's body or.

2:28

In at least two of the cases,

2:28

there appears to be independent

2:31

corroboration of the stories. So in one such case, someone goes into

2:34

cardiac arrest and is undergoing C P

2:39

R, during which time the person claims

2:39

to have had an out-of-body experience,

2:44

and watching from above sees that his

2:44

dentures were placed into a drawer.

2:49

The next day he reminds the nurse of

2:49

this, who was surprised because it only

2:53

occurred when he was supposed to be unc.

2:57

And in another case, when Pam Reynolds

2:57

was undergoing surgery for a brain

3:01

aneurysm, she was under anesthesia and

3:01

so she couldn't have been conscious.

3:06

And yet after the surgery, she reported

3:06

specific conversations from the

3:11

medical team about some of the details

3:11

of her case that she couldn't have

3:16

overheard while she was unconscious.

3:18

So what both of these. Stories point to is insofar as

3:20

there is independent corroboration

3:25

for the veracity of one's claims

3:25

while in a near death experience.

3:29

This gives some evidence to

3:29

believe that near death experiences

3:33

are real in a objective sense.

3:37

That one really does leave one's

3:37

body and one can have this kind of

3:41

out-of-body experience, which is

3:41

not an illusion or hallucination,

3:45

but is as real as it is represented.

3:49

That has to say that one

3:49

really is out of one's body.

3:52

So Fischer tries to distinguish between

3:52

two different senses of real that we use.

3:56

One being subjective and

3:56

the other being objective.

3:59

Fischer doesn't deny that the people who

3:59

underwent these near death experiences

4:04

actually had those experiences. He doesn't deny the reality

4:06

of their experience.

4:09

Those who do, he would describe as a

4:09

near death experience denier that even

4:13

though a few of these people, such

4:13

apparently as Alex Malarkey turned out

4:16

to be fraudulent because he later claimed

4:16

that he made it up and he didn't actually

4:22

have the experiences that he claimed to.

4:24

Not all such people are

4:24

fraudulent, and some may actually

4:27

have had those experiences. However, just because they had the

4:29

experience doesn't mean what they were

4:32

experiencing is as they thought it.

4:35

As to say that the experience

4:35

were vertical in this way.

4:38

Fisher thinks of these near death

4:38

experiences as a bit like dreams.

4:42

People really dream. They really do have the experience in

4:43

the dreams as they are depicted in the

4:48

sense that if you have a dream of flying

4:48

around or something, that really is an

4:51

experience you have in the dream, but in

4:51

reality, you never actually fly around,

4:56

not in the way that you dream about it. Dreams are a kind of hallucination,

4:58

and so to our near death

5:01

experiences, according to. But there has to be some

5:03

additional argument for this.

5:06

It's merely denying that, like

5:06

a dream, there is no such thing.

5:09

Nobody actually goes

5:09

outside of their bodies.

5:12

That would be impossible. That is to give a conclusion

5:13

without giving an argument.

5:16

The sea Fischer's argument. You have to ask the question, what

5:17

would have to be true of the mind?

5:21

In order for a vertical out of body

5:21

experience to be possible, what kind

5:26

of thing is the mind such that it is

5:26

so detachable from the body such that

5:31

there could be a mind without a body

5:31

and you would go where your mind goes?

5:35

The most natural thought that would

5:35

motivate this conclusion would be

5:39

something called substance dualism.

5:42

This is a view that the minds are souls.

5:45

And that we don't have souls. We are souls, and what we have are bodies.

5:49

We have a kind of accidental

5:49

relationship between the mind and the.

5:54

And it's detachable. So Decart famously had a view similar

5:56

to this, although his view of the

6:00

relationship between mind and body

6:00

was a little bit more complicated

6:04

insofar as he thought that we're

6:04

not exactly like pilots of a ship.

6:09

Or you could imagine a modern

6:09

day equivalent to this analogy.

6:12

Would be like a person driving a car.

6:15

So you can think of your body

6:15

as like a meat body, as like

6:18

a vehicle, a meat vehicle. And what you are is the mind that pilots

6:19

or drives around in the meat vehicle,

6:23

which is accidentally related to the body

6:23

that has to say it could be detached at

6:28

any moment, and there's no necessity.

6:30

That's linking the mind to the body.

6:33

So Decart in some of the later passages

6:33

of the meditations seems to suggest.

6:38

That this is not his picture of

6:38

what we are, and his conception

6:43

of personal identity is a bit

6:43

more robust than just being like a

6:46

pilot of a vessel, a meat vessel.

6:48

However, there's a view that's

6:48

quite similar to day cards.

6:51

You might think of it as just a more

6:51

accidental view of the relationship

6:54

between mind and body where we are just.

6:58

Mines, and this is like, you

6:58

might call it the pilot view.

7:00

We're just driving around in our

7:00

meat bodies, and when death occurs,

7:05

it separates the mind from body and

7:05

in certain contexts, certain near

7:09

death contexts, there's a temporary

7:09

separation where people move towards

7:14

the light, so to speak, down the

7:14

dark tunnel, but for some reason are

7:18

called back, or either voluntarily or

7:18

involuntarily return to their bodies

7:23

to tell the tail and tell us all. What the afterlife is like during

7:26

their journey in a near death experie.

7:30

So Fisher describes this as a kind of

7:30

supernaturalist view of the relationship

7:36

between the mind and body, and he

7:36

contrast this with what he calls

7:39

physicalism, or he also uses the

7:39

term naturalism interchangeably with

7:44

his view, and he thinks that there's

7:44

something magical about the mind.

7:49

If it were a distinct substance

7:49

from the body and were related

7:54

in some kind of mysterious. What he's alluding to here is this

7:57

famous problem of mind body interaction,

8:03

sometimes called as the mind body problem.

8:06

If the mind were a wholly distinct

8:06

kind of thing that is independent of

8:12

the body, such that it's possible for

8:12

there to be a mind without a body.

8:16

Then how is it possible for the mind

8:16

to interact with the body, both in

8:22

terms of what you might call upwards

8:22

causation and downwards causation?

8:26

So upwards causation is, think

8:26

of perception or sensations.

8:30

It's when some change. Is produced or brought about in the body,

8:32

and that produces a change in the mind.

8:38

So for instance, if you touch

8:38

a hot stove, you feel pain.

8:43

So there's the movement of the body

8:43

which comes into contact with the hot

8:47

stove, and then that produces a change

8:47

in the mind, which is a sensation

8:52

of pain as one's hand is burned.

8:54

Likewise, there's downwards causation in

8:54

which a change in the mind produces a.

9:00

In the body. So for instance, that sensation

9:01

of pain triggers something.

9:05

Your mind may not consciously control

9:05

the jerking of your hand away from

9:10

the hot stove, and yet there is

9:10

some kind of control that is being

9:15

exerted, presumably by your mind,

9:15

which produces a change in your body

9:20

and retracts your hand from the hot.

9:23

That would be an instance of what

9:23

I'm calling downwards causation.

9:26

So there's this kind of interaction

9:26

which involves both upwards and downwards

9:31

causation between the mind and the body.

9:33

And that interaction would

9:33

seem to be quite mysterious if

9:38

the kind of thing that minds. R is an entirely different

9:39

kind of thing than bodies and

9:44

other physical interactions. So you might think, for instance, given

9:46

the way causation works, that when one

9:51

billiard ball hits another billiard ball,

9:51

there's a kind of transmission of force.

9:56

One material object hits another at

9:56

a certain speed and momentum and some

10:01

force is transferred to that other thing. And so there's some way of explaining

10:03

it, perhaps using Newtonian mechanics.

10:08

Can be explained how it is that the

10:08

mechanism of causation operates in

10:12

which one billiard ball, say the

10:12

white ball hits the black ball, which

10:16

then goes from a resting position

10:16

to moving across the billiard table.

10:21

And of course, Neurophysiologist produce

10:21

very similar kinds of mechanistic

10:26

explanations for how the nervous

10:26

system works, both the central nervous

10:30

system or the sympathetic nervous

10:30

system in producing changes in the

10:34

brain and how the brain seems to

10:34

undergo different kinds of changes,

10:40

so as to produce movement in the body.

10:43

In the process of these explanations,

10:43

there doesn't seem to be any kind

10:47

of immaterial element, even if the

10:47

neurophysiologist or neurologists have not

10:52

fully explained how action works or how

10:52

the mind works the thought is this is a.

10:58

An incomplete picture from science

10:58

that they're filling in the gaps.

11:01

And so far there's been no

11:01

good reason to think or suppose

11:06

that we're going to introduce

11:06

immaterial causes into the picture.

11:09

And yet this is what the

11:09

substance do list is committed to.

11:13

There being some kind of immaterial

11:13

cause It has to be immaterial because

11:18

it's substance dualism as a view. The mind is a distinct kind of thing.

11:22

It's not made out of matter.

11:24

The way a billiard ball or any

11:24

other material object is composed,

11:30

it's made of different kind of

11:30

stuff like soul stuff, which is a

11:35

wholly different kind of substance.

11:38

It's not made out of the

11:38

elements of the periodic table,

11:41

which would render it material. So that seems to be the view that's

11:42

presupposed by many of these people

11:48

reporting a near death experience, that

11:48

at least there's some kind of independence

11:52

of their mind from their bodies. Whether there would explicitly

11:54

endorse something as robust as

11:58

substance dualism is something of

11:58

an open question, and I think it's

12:02

a bit uncharitable to characterize a

12:02

problematic view to any of these people.

12:06

But at the same time, they seem to

12:06

speak as if that's how they think of the

12:09

relationship between the mind and the. They distinguish between they're,

12:12

they're not the same according to these

12:16

reporters of near death experiences,

12:16

that what they are is are their minds or

12:21

their souls, and that this is something

12:21

severable and detachable from the bodies.

12:25

And insofar as that's true, then there's

12:25

a kind of independence that exists.

12:29

It's not just merely possible that there

12:29

could be a soul or a mind without a

12:33

body, but that there is a mind without

12:33

a body and out of body experiences.

12:37

That's what makes it out of body. So Fisher thinks that substance

12:39

dualism is false, and for this

12:43

reason, the presupposition upon

12:43

which many of these near-death

12:46

experiences are premised is undermined.

12:49

And hence, there's no good reason

12:49

to believe that any of these near

12:52

death experiences are vertical.

12:54

They're like dreams or hallucination.

12:57

And insofar as they are, dreams

12:57

are hallucinations, they are

13:00

not evidence of the afterlife. That's the rough outline

13:02

of Fisher's argument.

13:05

But of course, I think we should

13:05

distinguish between evidence

13:08

that's misleading versus something

13:08

that's not even evidence at all.

13:12

And I think in this regard, Fisher

13:12

is a bit too uncharitable to

13:16

these near death experiencers.

13:19

And I think what they're reporting

13:19

does constitute some sort of evidence,

13:22

although that evidence may be misleading

13:22

if it leads you to conclude that near

13:27

death experiences are evidence of

13:27

an afterlife, but something can be

13:31

misleading evidence and still be evidence.

13:34

Another problematic element of this

13:34

chapter is Fisher seems to construct a

13:39

false dichotomy between substance dualism.

13:43

And what he describes as physicalism,

13:43

which he calls the view that our minds

13:47

and consciousness are entirely physical,

13:47

our brains and processes in our brains.

13:52

So I'm not exactly sure what that

13:52

means for something to be physical,

13:58

but typically it means it is fully

13:58

described by the language of physics.

14:02

Such that ideally, although he doesn't

14:02

write about this, were there are some

14:06

best system in which physics were to

14:06

be finished and all discoveries of

14:10

the discipline of physics would be

14:10

discovered and codified into a system

14:16

of natural laws that could be explicate

14:16

in a whole detail without remainder.

14:21

If that was possible, then consciousness

14:21

would be fully explained under this.

14:26

And of course I think we should

14:26

distinguish between reductive and

14:29

non reductive forms of physicalism. It very well may be the case that

14:31

consciousness and the entirety of our

14:35

mentality could be explained in purely

14:35

the language of physics, but it need not.

14:40

And if in fact, it turns out that

14:40

the relationship between the various

14:43

special sciences say between physics,

14:43

chemistry, biology is not one of

14:48

reduction, but there's a kind of

14:48

non reductive, explanatory emergency

14:52

you might call it, between the. Special sciences, then that would be

14:54

a different way of characterizing the

14:59

relationship between mind and body. So you wouldn't hold to

15:00

this independence claim.

15:04

If there is no body,

15:04

there would be no mind.

15:06

And yet a non reductive

15:06

physicalist needn't be committed

15:09

to the claim that causation only

15:09

occurs the micro physical level.

15:12

Or that a finished form of microphysics,

15:12

so to speak, would explain everything

15:19

in its own terms, that there's

15:19

a kind of reductive element to a

15:23

physical explanation that would only

15:23

occur at the micro physical level

15:26

that may in fact be impossible. So that there are non reductive and

15:28

reductive forms of physicalism and

15:32

the non reductive physicalist is not

15:32

committed to the claim that there's

15:37

anything supernatural going on. In fact, the non reductive physicalist

15:39

is committed to denying that.

15:42

However, as well as the independence

15:42

thesis, that there could be a mind without

15:46

a body that doesn't commit one into a

15:46

kind of reductivist model of causation,

15:51

where it only occurs at the micro physical

15:51

level, or that minds are identical.

15:57

In type or token with brain

15:57

states of some kind or another.

16:01

Now there's a wealth of different

16:01

positions in the philosophy of mind

16:05

that are basically glossed over

16:05

and not even considered, actually,

16:10

they're not even glossed over, they're

16:10

just not even considered in this.

16:13

Chapter, but I'm pretty sure that John

16:13

Martin Fisher is well aware of them

16:17

and it would've been nice to maybe

16:17

even have a footnote, if not a section

16:21

devoted to trying to make sense of what

16:21

near death experiences could be given

16:26

different theories of the nature of

16:26

the mind that Fisher is well aware of.

16:31

So Dirk Para Boom, for instance,

16:31

has a book defending a non reductive

16:34

form of physicalism, which it

16:34

would be kind of interesting.

16:38

To see if there would be any difference

16:38

in his take of the matter on near

16:41

death experiences than, than say a

16:41

more reductive form of physicalism as

16:45

exemplified by figure like young Juan Kim.

16:47

I'm not entirely sure. But perhaps nothing would turn on it

16:49

because they may all agree with Fisher

16:53

that insofar as the mind is wholly

16:53

physical in some sense or another,

16:57

which they may differ about, they would

16:57

all agree that there's nothing about

17:02

near death experiences, which would

17:02

give evidence for a afterlife and for

17:06

anything supernatural for that matter. So I think all of the physicalist,

17:08

no matter what flavor of physicalist

17:11

you may be, would agree to. However, there are philosophers who reject

17:13

naturalism or physicalism, what have you

17:18

about the mind, and yet also reject the

17:18

Cartesian view that the mind is a distinct

17:24

substance from the body, independent of

17:24

it that nevertheless causally interacts.

17:29

And produces changes in in the body.

17:32

So for instance, there's a view

17:32

of the mind called epiphenomenal,

17:35

which typically is paired with

17:35

what's called properties dualism.

17:40

This is the view that the phenomenon

17:40

of like consciousness and the

17:43

characteristics of our experiences

17:43

and what it is like to undergo and

17:46

experience are properties of the, the

17:46

activity of the matter of our brains.

17:52

However, as a. It's distinct in kind and in fact they're

17:54

from ordinary physical properties and

18:01

that there's something special about

18:01

consciousness and it's special in a

18:04

way that does allow for some kind of

18:04

independence such that there could be.

18:10

Zombie creatures, which are physically

18:10

identical to you, but lack consciousness

18:16

and a zombie would be something similar.

18:19

If it were even possible, it would be something similar to a body without a mind.

18:22

Now, of course, zombies would still

18:22

have certain mental phenomenon.

18:24

Perhaps they would still have beliefs and desires. But they would not have a phenomenology.

18:29

The lights would be dark on the zombies.

18:32

There would be nothing going on there. If that view of the relationship between

18:34

the mind and the body is epiphenomenal,

18:37

that is to say there's upward

18:37

causation, but no downward causation.

18:41

And if consciousness were a

18:41

property, Of certain kinds of

18:45

material beings like humans or other

18:45

animals, but not rocks or stones.

18:51

Then it would be interesting to

18:51

think, what implications does that

18:54

have for near death experiences

18:54

as evidence for the afterlife?

18:57

Could near death experiences be evidence

18:57

for an afterlife on a view of the mind

19:02

as a kind of property's doist view?

19:05

So here I think it really depends on

19:05

how independent conscious properties are

19:09

from matter on a property's do list view.

19:13

It seems conceivable to me that there

19:13

could be some kind of transferability

19:17

of consciousness, and if what preserves

19:17

our personal identity is our psychology

19:23

of some sort or another, perhaps even

19:23

phenomenal continuity, then it seems to

19:27

me that on a property's do list view,

19:27

It should be possible in principle for

19:33

a mind to be transferable to like a

19:33

machine or to download your consciousness

19:39

onto a computer of some kind.

19:41

Of course it wouldn't, insofar as

19:41

downloadable content is concerned, one's

19:45

mind would just come along for the ride

19:45

with perhaps some sort of informational

19:48

systems that are duplicated or

19:48

transferred, but that's not the classical

19:52

epiphenomenal view, which may hold that.

19:55

There's something special about

19:55

the wet matter of our brains.

19:59

But if. Pair a property's dualist view with some

20:00

kind of substrate independence view.

20:04

Then it seems on the combination of those

20:04

couple of views, which are intuitive,

20:08

that the light of consciousness could be

20:08

something that would be transferable in

20:12

a way that would preserve our personal

20:12

identities into a inhuman form, but

20:16

it would still be a physical form. We would still need some kind of

20:18

substrate, which would be material

20:22

to preserve our consciousness in the. I'm not sure that would work though for an

20:24

afterlife in which it's wholly immaterial.

20:30

Typically, if it's something like heaven,

20:30

the afterlife is a transcendental realm.

20:34

It's not on the same plane

20:34

of existence, so to speak.

20:37

If that even makes sense to say

20:37

that there are planes of existence

20:40

as the ordinary material world. If that was the case, then I don't see

20:41

how a property's do list could think

20:46

that the afterlife were possible.

20:48

And so, you know, if something was impossible. Some evidence for an impossibility

20:51

would seem to be out of order.

20:54

So I think that's also what's

20:54

motivating fisher here.

20:57

You think, well, something

20:57

like the afterlife or a heaven

20:59

is a transcendental realm. That's not even possible

21:00

in the first instance.

21:03

And so any kind of punitive experience

21:03

that people have where they claim to

21:07

go to an afterlife, they go towards

21:07

the light through the dark tunnel and

21:11

somehow come close to, if not arrive

21:11

at heaven, and then they come back.

21:15

That would require traversal to.

21:18

Immaterial and transcendental realm

21:18

as a different plane of existence,

21:22

which which would be inaccessible to

21:22

us unless substance dualism were true.

21:27

Now, in the last episode, I wondered

21:27

what would heaven have to be like

21:30

if it were possible to go to, even

21:30

if substance dualism were true?

21:34

It seems as if there's. A kind of pairing problem in which

21:35

we would become unpaired with our

21:41

material bodies in this P plain of

21:41

existence, and then somehow transcend

21:45

to a higher or a different realm in

21:45

which we would become, I guess, embodied

21:50

or at least coupled with some other

21:50

kind of thing in that other realm.

21:55

Children will sometimes ask, well,

21:55

if I were to die and go to heaven,

21:58

would I just be a child forever? What would my body be

21:59

like if I had a body?

22:01

And if I don't have a body, what would that be like? Usually there's never any good

22:03

answers to those kinds of questions.

22:06

However, on a property's doist view

22:06

of the nature of consciousness and

22:10

the mind, even if it's paired with a

22:10

robust kind of substrate independence,

22:15

I don't see how you could have a

22:15

transcendence in which the mind.

22:21

Transcends to some other realm

22:21

or other plaintiff of existence.

22:25

So even if consciousness were special

22:25

and independent of the body such that

22:30

zombies were possible, I don't think

22:30

on that view, near death experiences

22:35

can be evidence of the afterlife. Nor do I think that the afterlife would

22:37

be insofar it would be as it would be

22:41

transcendental would even be possible

22:41

under a property's do list view.

22:44

Nevertheless, I think. This section could be radically

22:46

expanded in a way that would

22:49

be a lot more interesting. Fisher spends quite a lot of this chapter

22:50

going into the details of various kinds of

22:56

near death experiences that are all very

22:56

similar, and it's not entirely relevant.

23:01

So I think a lot of the words spent

23:01

on that could have been spent on

23:05

different conceptions of the mind

23:05

and what implications they would

23:09

have as to whether near death

23:09

experiences or evidence of an after.

23:13

However, there were the two cases of

23:13

near death experiences with independent

23:19

cooperation that you could see as a kind

23:19

of argument in favor of substance dualism.

23:23

So the thought here is that if the brain

23:23

is offline during a near death experience

23:28

and yet you have an experience, then there

23:28

must be some sort of nonphysical mechanism

23:33

that produces that experience, such as a.

23:36

So those undergoing a near death

23:36

experience, insofar as they're

23:40

experiencing anything independently

23:40

of the body, that means something

23:43

else must be the vehicle by which

23:43

those experiences are produced.

23:47

So Fisher finds this argument

23:47

unconvincing because he thinks

23:50

that in order for there to be. Some sort of causation, like

23:52

upwards or downwards causation.

23:55

There must be some sort of mechanism. However, the mechanism that would

23:57

interface the immaterial mind with the

24:02

material brain is deeply mysterious in

24:02

a way that suggests that there is no

24:07

such thing and there could be no such

24:07

causal interaction between an immaterial

24:13

mental substance and a material body,

24:13

uh, such as a brain or the body as.

24:18

So here Fisher is relying on the

24:18

interaction to do the work here.

24:22

He doesn't mention this, but Decart

24:22

famously, Anne mistakenly identified

24:26

the penile gland as the locust in

24:26

which the causal transmissions between

24:30

the mind and the brain would occur. As it turns out, that's not

24:33

what the penile gland does,

24:35

but it was a good guess. So what Fishers thinks about.

24:39

The so-called cases of independent

24:39

corroboration is he thinks that they're

24:42

so-called because it's not, he thinks

24:42

that person with the dentures probably

24:47

made a lucky guess and he likely just

24:47

misremembered it and Pam Reynolds

24:53

may have registered the relevant

24:53

information of the conversation.

24:57

She didn't actually overhear it. She didn't have a conscious

24:58

experience cuz she was unconscious

25:03

at the time under anesthesia. But the information may have

25:04

registered in her brain and then later.

25:09

Recollected. When she was awake. And so what the common element of this is?

25:13

It, it's just much, it's

25:13

very similar to dreams.

25:16

So during a dream it feels as if one may

25:16

live a long time or, or like some of the

25:23

experiences, at least in my dreams, feel

25:23

as if they have a duration much longer

25:27

than the eight hours I had for them. But my time perception is kind

25:30

of messed up with dreams, and

25:33

this is true for everyone. And in fact, many of the dreams we

25:34

recollect were only occurred to us in the

25:37

last few minutes right before we woke up. And so there's a difference

25:40

between the time in which the dream

25:43

depicts and you know, the time.

25:45

It seems like from the internal

25:45

perspective of the dream, and in reality

25:49

might call it the external time, the

25:49

time at which the dream actually occurs.

25:53

Object. And since there's a difference between

25:55

those things that can distort one's

25:58

perception of time as one's dreaming

25:58

so too, is that also the case with

26:03

near-death experiences where one

26:03

retrospectively thinks that the near-death

26:08

experience occurred during the surgery

26:08

when in fact it may have been like

26:12

a dream that only occurred in the

26:12

last few minutes right before waking?

26:16

So in order for the supernaturalist with

26:16

as to say the substance do list to make

26:21

the case that near death experiences are

26:21

evidence for the afterlife fisher places.

26:26

What I regard is an unfair and, strong

26:26

explanatory burden upon their view.

26:31

Namely, they need cases in which

26:31

individuals report something

26:35

that's verifiably true, but

26:35

couldn't have possibly been

26:38

acquired by physical mechanisms.

26:41

And so one way to do that perhaps is

26:41

to set up computer monitors in rooms

26:46

that are not visible to patients while

26:46

they're unconscious in their beds.

26:50

But if they have an out of body

26:50

experience, they could read

26:52

presumably from the, the monitor

26:52

and report later what those are.

26:56

But so far, apparently no one

26:56

has successfully done that.

26:59

In a reliable fashion. Another thing perhaps is you might put

27:01

messages on the top of bookcases that

27:05

are not visible to people when they're

27:05

undergoing the surgery or bookcases

27:08

or shelves or something like this. So if you were looking down

27:10

upon your body, you would see

27:13

the message or the number and

27:13

you'd be able to say what it is.

27:15

And apparently that's never happened. So providing some reason to believe,

27:17

or at least no reason to believe

27:21

the people claim to have near death

27:21

experiences actually do go out of their.

27:27

Even if they have the sensation that it is. So Fisher doesn't think that any

27:29

of these near death experiences are

27:32

vertical, cuz if he were to admit even

27:32

one that would, I think provide some

27:37

reason to believe in the afterlife.

27:40

So for Fisher, the mere possibility of

27:40

a naturalistic explanation is superior.

27:44

To the Supernaturalist explanation every

27:44

time, because even if physical science

27:49

is yet to be completed, that's much

27:49

better than the deep mystery posited

27:53

by view of the mind as a distinct

27:53

substance in a supernaturalist worldview.

27:58

So I actually think this is kind

27:58

of unfair, explanatory burden

28:02

that Fisher seems to be setting

28:02

up for his opponents here.

28:04

Part of the reason is think about a

28:04

different, What if we lived in the

28:08

Harry Potter world, or in the Lord

28:08

of the Rings world, or some kind of,

28:13

you know, it's not the real world. It's not the actual world, but a

28:14

possible world in which magic were real.

28:18

Could the mind be a distinct

28:18

substance from the body in that world?

28:22

I don't see why not. If physicalism were true,

28:23

it may be necessarily true.

28:27

And if that's the case, then

28:27

in no possible world could the

28:30

mind be distinct from the body. And yet I don't see a strong argument

28:31

for that, or at least for me, I've

28:34

always been somewhat sympathetic that

28:34

zombies or other kinds of beings with

28:39

minds without bodies were possible

28:39

in perhaps a remote possible world.

28:44

And yet that's not how it works In. The actual world.

28:47

However, there's something

28:47

called the conceivable argument

28:50

in favor of substance dualism. If it's even conceivable for there

28:52

to be a mind without a body, then

28:55

it's possible for there to be a mind

28:55

without a body, which means that the

28:57

mind and the body are not identical,

28:57

or at least the mind is not identical

29:01

to any part of the body like the brain. I'm running rough shot over that argument.

29:05

I mean, there's many variants

29:05

of the conceivable argument.

29:07

There's many variants of the

29:07

modal argument for substance

29:11

dualism, which are quite powerful. However, I think the

29:13

debate is, Logically naive.

29:17

That is to say, I think what matters

29:17

is how counterfactually robust, the

29:22

bridge principles between the mind

29:22

and the body are in the real world,

29:25

in the actual world, in the here

29:25

and now, and not modally distant.

29:31

Possible worlds which could

29:31

be radically unlike our own.

29:33

So even if mind brain identity fails

29:33

even at the level of tokens, if not

29:37

types, any plausibly similar possible

29:37

world to our own with similar laws

29:43

of nature would have a coincidence

29:43

between the mind and the body.

29:46

There's a so robust that something

29:46

like zombies would not be

29:49

possible in those kinds of world. The laws of nature would have to

29:51

be radically different in order

29:54

for magic to be possible and in

29:54

order for zombies to be possible.

29:58

But insofar as its coherent description,

29:58

describing zombies and insofar as it's

30:03

conceivable, I think that's some good

30:03

reason to believe that it's possible.

30:08

Though the laws of nature would have

30:08

to be radically different, and the

30:11

contrary view that would stipulate

30:11

that such even moly, remote possible

30:16

worlds were impossible, seems quite.

30:20

Ignore your intuitions. Such so-called possibilities are.

30:23

In fact, I impossibilities because

30:23

presumably your principle is true.

30:28

There's something question begging about that. There has to be some independent reason

30:30

to believe that zombies or magic would

30:35

be impossible and that there could

30:35

be no possible world at which laws

30:39

of nature were so radically different

30:39

that such things would then be.

30:43

However, when writing about near death

30:43

experiences and what evidence they have

30:47

for the afterlife, going into the details

30:47

of the conceivably and modal arguments for

30:51

substance dualism, I think would be too

30:51

much of a distraction for this chapter.

30:55

So I don't fault Fisher

30:55

for ignoring those.

30:59

Nevertheless, I think it's instructive

30:59

to ask yourself how different could the

31:02

world possibly be and if the world were

31:02

radically different than it actually is.

31:07

Could substance dualism be a more

31:07

plausible explanation for near

31:11

death experiences than the ones that

31:11

Fisher seems to make up on the fly

31:16

about some of these case studies?

31:18

And some of these self reports. Sometimes this comes up in the philosophy

31:20

of religion, about naturalistic

31:23

evidence for the existence of God. So what kind of evidence should one need

31:25

in order to believe that there's a God?

31:30

If an old man in the sky spontaneously

31:30

appeared and said, I am God, would

31:35

that be as sufficient evidence

31:35

to believe that there's a God?

31:37

Or perhaps would that be reason

31:37

to believe that you went?

31:42

Or you had some other kind of

31:42

hallucination, or you might pinch

31:45

yourself to wonder if you're dreaming. And it seems as if no matter how

31:47

detailed the experience would be,

31:52

it would only afford a naturalistic

31:52

kind of explanation, right?

31:55

So if a head appeared in the sky,

31:55

that would be a reason to believe

32:00

that there's some sort of powerful

32:00

being, which presumably under his.

32:05

Power appears as a head in the sky.

32:07

That in itself is no reason to

32:07

believe that the head that appeared

32:11

in the sky belongs to the same being

32:11

that may have created the universe.

32:15

In fact, you're given no reason

32:15

to believe that anyone created the

32:18

universe just by such experiences.

32:21

Now, perhaps this is an

32:21

inductive argument, so you might

32:24

think that with a sufficient. Robust amount of different

32:26

kinds of experiences.

32:28

You could imagine that these would

32:28

unify into a plausible story,

32:32

especially if it conforms with

32:32

one's favorite religious text.

32:36

However, there is quite the gap I think,

32:36

between the philosopher's conception

32:42

of God and all of its perfections and

32:42

pretty robust metaphysical properties

32:48

and whatever kinds of experiences

32:48

we could have no matter how exotic.

32:52

And for similar reasons, you might

32:52

think that any kind of inductive

32:56

argument or at least an inductive

32:56

argument based on what you classify as

33:00

a religious experience, be insufficient

33:00

to believe in the existence of a God.

33:04

And likewise, no matter what kind

33:04

of experience you might have of

33:08

an afterlife, you might think that

33:08

that's not really going to work

33:11

as evidence for and afterlife. Alternatively, you might run that back

33:12

the other direction, but if that's the

33:15

case, then why shouldn't Fisher take.

33:18

Reports of people with near-death

33:18

experiences as evidence of

33:21

her and afterlife, even if

33:21

it's Dee or implausible.

33:25

Seems like the two phenomenon are

33:25

relatively parallel in my mind.

33:29

So Fisher thinks that the

33:29

near-death experience reports

33:32

seem to have a kind of similarity. Not because they're perceiving anything

33:34

real objectively speaking, but rather

33:39

it's because the Experiencers have a kind

33:39

of similarity with respect to themselves

33:44

as to say there are certain cultural

33:44

tropes or stories that they share about

33:50

their following, the light down the

33:50

dark tunnel, which is a metaphorical

33:55

way of interpreting what they're

33:55

experiencing, which is basically a halluc.

34:00

And some evidence he gives for this

34:00

is, well, apparently in Japan people

34:05

don't interpret the flickering of

34:05

light as light down a dark tunnel

34:09

as like traversing to an afterlife. Instead, they think of it as like tending

34:11

to a rock garden with friends and loved

34:14

ones, which is similarly comforting

34:14

and yet is interpreted differently.

34:18

So the fact there are different cultural

34:18

modes of interpreting these near death

34:22

experiences is a reason to think.

34:26

Those experiences are not vertical. And so in this way, Fisher seems to

34:28

give a kind of naturalistic reduction

34:32

of near death experiences, not in

34:32

terms of the verticality of the

34:35

experience of what's being perceived,

34:35

but in terms of the characteristics

34:39

of the experiences that people have.

34:41

Similar hallucinations when undergoing

34:41

certain kinds of trauma or near death

34:46

experiences in near death contexts.

34:48

And the variation between

34:48

cultures is explained in terms

34:51

of the kind of metaphors and. That exist in order to interpret

34:53

those experiences in that society.

34:56

So the reason to give these kinds

34:56

of explanations to suggest that

35:00

there's nothing there, there. That there is no dark tunnel

35:01

with a light at the end of it.

35:05

That's all just an hallucination. And in fact, he cites a neurologist,

35:06

Kevin Nelson, who explains how the

35:11

dark tunnels associated with the

35:11

compromise of blood flow to the retina.

35:14

And the bright light is a flow of neuronal

35:14

excitement moving from a part of the

35:18

brainstem to the subcortical visual

35:18

relay and then to the occipital cortex.

35:23

So different parts of the brain that

35:23

is what is producing those sens.

35:28

Here's the problem with these

35:28

kinds of naturalistic, reductive

35:31

explanations, because you can also

35:31

give that for color perception.

35:35

You can tell a true story about how

35:35

it is that the brain processes or the

35:40

eyes interpret light and that the brain

35:40

processes the visual stimuli that is

35:45

produced from the eyes, and yet that

35:45

doesn't mean that what you see isn't real.

35:51

That when you look at a red apple,

35:51

That the apple isn't really red,

35:55

or at least there's a bit of a

35:55

debate about color perception in pH.

35:58

And the metaphysics of perception

35:58

and epistemology perception, but

36:02

nevertheless, we don't say that

36:02

ordinary color perception is

36:07

hallucinogenic or a bit like a dream.

36:10

And so giving a kind of

36:10

mechanistic explanation as to what.

36:14

Causes or gives rise to these

36:14

experiences is insufficient to

36:19

establish that the experiences

36:19

are not by themselves vertical.

36:22

The reason being is because it's very much

36:22

in parallel and analogous with the kind of

36:26

naturalistic reduction of explanations we

36:26

can give about ordinary color perception.

36:31

And yet ordinary color

36:31

perception very much is vertical.

36:34

So what is Fisher's explanation then as

36:34

to why the near death experiences are

36:38

not vertical and yet ordinary color?

36:40

Perception is vertical. If he's merely appealing

36:42

to naturalistic, reductive

36:44

explanations, that's not gonna work. However, he does have a positive

36:46

view of why it is that we have

36:51

these near-death experiences. Cuz if you've bought into his argument so

36:53

far and you think that, well, these aren't

36:56

vertical, so then why do people have them? What, what advantage could there

36:58

be, at least evolutionarily for

37:02

having these near-death experiences

37:02

if they're not objectively real?

37:06

If there's. Afterlife and there's no traveling

37:07

to the afterlife through a near-death

37:11

experience, then why would we

37:11

even have these kinds of things?

37:16

What advantage could there be? And so this is where Fisher does

37:17

concede that there doesn't appear

37:21

to be any evolutionary advantage for

37:21

a near-death experience on its own.

37:25

However, it's a necessary byproduct

37:25

or what he calls a spandrel of

37:30

something that does have a survival

37:30

advantage, namely having a certain

37:34

calm alertness in the face of extreme. So when you're in a context which

37:37

is extremely dangerous, like

37:40

undergoing surgery or falling

37:40

off a cliff, then the brain tends

37:45

to go a bit crazy, so to speak. The brain pumps yourself through

37:47

all these chemicals, which can help

37:51

produce a kind of calm alertness

37:51

in the face of extreme danger.

37:54

But one in the side effects of this

37:54

can be an out-of-body experience

37:58

or other elements of the near-death

37:58

experience story, which is partly

38:02

why, for instance, fighter pilots

38:02

would have an out-of-body experie.

38:06

But also epilepsy patients

38:06

or people with dementia.

38:09

And so Fisher thinks that near death

38:09

experiences are necessary byproducts

38:14

or side effects of the brain's fight or

38:14

flight impulse to stay calm and carry on.

38:20

And this is true not only for the

38:20

positive near death experiences, which are

38:24

transformative and spiritual, or giving

38:24

less anxiety, but also for the negative

38:31

ones as well, which can be quite horrific.

38:33

As long as they're coming along for

38:33

the ride, so to speak, with the brain's

38:37

ability to have an impulse for fight

38:37

or flight, then so too must one, have

38:42

the positive as well as the negative. The good comes with the bad, and

38:44

Fisher ends this section with a

38:46

bit of an appeal to ignorance. Unfortunately, by arguing that the

38:48

alternative to his view, which is the

38:52

substance dualism view, can't even

38:52

explain ordinary perception without

38:56

positing some sort of mysterious non.

38:59

Mechanism by which the transmission

38:59

of visual stimuli to the

39:04

eyes is somehow brought to a

39:04

non-physical and immaterial brain.

39:08

Can't be the penal gland. It has to be something else, but it's

39:10

mysterious what else it could be.

39:13

And so in fact, it produces not a

39:13

simpler explanation of near-death

39:16

experiences or near perception. It produces a much more complex

39:18

and much more mysterious

39:20

explanation than ordinary physical. He doesn't specify which variety

39:22

of physicalism he favors,

39:25

just some kind of physicalism. And further, he thinks that appeals

39:27

to the vivacity or the vividness of a

39:32

near-death experience doesn't establish

39:32

that it's not a dream or hallucination.

39:37

Dreams can be vivid. In fact, they can be just as vivid

39:39

if not more vivid than ordinary life.

39:42

That by itself does not establish

39:42

that there's an external reality

39:45

answering to the experience one

39:45

has in a near death experience.

39:50

That there really is an afterlife

39:50

that you really do go to and you

39:52

talk to God or you know community

39:52

angels and then come back to Earth.

39:56

And likewise, he thinks that appealing

39:56

to the similarity of the reports

40:00

between the different near death

40:00

experiencers does not help establish

40:04

that there really is an afterlife. It just establishes, there's

40:06

a certain kind of similar.

40:08

Between the experiencers, between the

40:08

people who are giving such reports.

40:13

But again, I think that argument

40:13

doesn't really work or is

40:15

problematic because that's also

40:15

true with ordinary color perception.

40:19

And yet we don't believe that

40:19

ordinary colors don't exist or that

40:23

those experiences are not vertical

40:23

and that there isn't an external

40:26

reality that matches or corresponds

40:26

with our ordinary color perceptions.

40:32

Now, you may still think that perhaps,

40:32

I mean, this is a view that the colors

40:35

are subjective, that any kind of.

40:38

What you might call is a secondary

40:38

quality exists merely in the mind of the

40:41

perceivers, and yet there are primary

40:41

qualities that are what those secondary

40:46

qualities are tracking, and perhaps like

40:46

the shape of the object or its degree of

40:52

reflectiveness for certain wavelengths

40:52

of lights if it's associated with

40:55

redness, for instance, like a red apple. And so that's how we can be

40:58

confident of the reliability of our

41:02

senses in our perceptual organs.

41:05

And yet for some reason, we cannot

41:05

be confident according to Fisher

41:08

on the near death experiences. And yet we don't really have a

41:10

good explanation for why that is.

41:12

I think the strongest argument from

41:12

this chapter is arguments against

41:17

the reality of substance dualism,

41:17

but those are, that argument only is

41:21

strong and that argument only succeeds. And so far as near death

41:22

experiences of presupposing a

41:25

certain kind of substance dualism. Which he then refutes and undermines,

41:28

which is the reason I think that this

41:32

chapter, I think would be overall

41:32

stronger if he were to consider.

41:36

Models of the mind of how the mind

41:36

relates to the body and argues on none

41:42

of these plausible theories of the

41:42

mind's relationship with the body.

41:46

Does it make sense to infer that

41:46

there really isn't an afterlife

41:49

except for perhaps substance dualism? And on that view, that that

41:51

view is clearly false about

41:54

the nature of the mind? All right, so in this episode we looked

42:02

at whether near death experiences

42:06

really are evidence of an afterlife. And Fisher says, no.

42:11

He thinks that would imply a view

42:11

of the mind, which is clearly false

42:16

and deeply mysterious, and in fact,

42:16

there's nothing supernatural going on.

42:21

Naturalism is true. The mind is physical.

42:23

There is no afterlife and near-death

42:23

experiences are spandrels of the flight

42:29

or flight mechanism of the brain.

42:32

That is to say there are necessary

42:32

byproducts of something that

42:34

is evolutionarily advantage.

42:37

So even if near death experiences

42:37

themselves are not advantageous, they

42:40

are byproducts of something that is

42:40

so in this way, near death experiences

42:45

are no more evidence of an afterlife

42:45

as a dream is evidence of whatever

42:50

it is that you're dreaming about. And they have the same kind of status.

42:52

They're both sorts of

42:52

hallucinations according to Fisher.