Are you interested in what happens to us after our bodies die? If so, then this book is a great resource.
We’re going to bring many assumptions to this subject. Maybe we are involved with one of the world’s religions, or perhaps our background is completely secular. I think this book will be relevant for everyone, whichever worldview we are personally starting from. (1)
We’re all coming with different assumptions, yet we’re all going to die one day. So, it is very helpful to read Miller’s careful assessment of the data gathered from people in two main groups. First, those who have not yet reached their final death, but apparently have had a sneak peek into what comes next (NDE). Second, those who had surprising encounters as their final death approached them (DBE). Various professional studies have been done on these phenomena. In this book, Dr Miller focuses on the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) database and assesses the experiences recorded there. He balances the data entered by medical professionals with reports from the general public, and assesses both in an even handed way.
Dr Miller has two strengths that he brings to this book. First, his rigorous and curious approach to the world. He’s not trying to confirm what he thinks he already knows. He’s genuinely looking at all the data he can find that seems to relate to what happens for ordinary people as they approach death. Second, he is incredibly generous in his scholarship. I can see that generosity in the extensive reference list he provides. But I can also see it in the way he forms his arguments. His rigor is matched by kindness, tentativeness, and accessibility. It’s a joy to read, and I never felt railroaded as I assessed his arguments in the book. But I did leave wanting to know more.
He covers a lot of ground, and so inevitably, Dr Miller cannot go into depth on every area he explores. For example, his treatment of the problem of evil in chapter 17 is very brief indeed. There is much more that can be said here, and some readers may feel their own issues with evil and suffering are not addressed. Yet perhaps a comprehensive treatment of this area is not really Miller’s goal. There are other resources that he points to that do that job. I think in this book, he helpfully faces the common complaint that life sometimes just does not make sense to us. He illustrates this problem by referring to the death of his first wife when she was very young. He then sketches out an argument to suggest that NDE’s point to a divine love and justice that will only be fully known and understood by us after our final death. I think this is helpful in two ways. Dr Miller might be breaking some new ground with this argument, and he is also laying helpful groundwork for future scholars to run with. Generosity again.
Are you skeptical about NDEs and DBEs based on your religious or secular commitments? Why not read Dr Miller’s book, and then come to your own opinion based on both the data and the inferences that he draws from it.
Consciousness is hard to understand. I’m conscious as I write this, and you are conscious as you read. But it is very hard for scientists to understand just what our “consciousness” amounts to. The resources in philosophy help. Some philosophers only allow an explanation of consciousness to be formed in materialistic and reductionist terms. For example, Daniel Dennett thinks that consciousness is matter.[1] Others think that brain matter itself, while correlating with our experience of consciousness, cannot be the cause of conscious experience. In other words, we are not our brains. Rather, we have brains.
A theory is emerging called the non-locality of consciousness. It comes from the field of Quantum Physics, and the observed phenomenon of quantum entanglement (QE). QE describes the behaviour of two sub-atomic particles that once entangled, remain mysteriously connected over long distances with no apparent physical connection existing between them. Pim van Lommel, cardiologist and Near-Death Experience (NDE) researcher for over 30 years describes a theory of nonlocal consciousness:
Our endless or nonlocal consciousness with declarative memories finds its origin and is stored in a nonlocal realm as wave-fields of information, and the brain only serves as a relay station for parts of these wave-fields of consciousness to be received into or as our waking consciousness. The function of the brain … [is as a] transceiver.[2]
In this blog, I want to give three examples of phenomena that seem to support the hypothesis of nonlocality of consciousness. All three relate to the practice of medicine:
1 – neuroplasticity
2 – terminal lucidity
3 – consciousness during a period of brain malfunction
1 – Neuroplasticity
Mindfulness studies show the ability of the human mind to shape the physical composition of the brain. Van Lommel observes that both neural networks and electromagnetic activity are shaped by one’s mind. He asks, how can we explain this scientifically if the conscious mind is merely a side-effect of a functioning brain, or if consciousness is just an illusion?[3]
He cites an example of a three-year-old girl whose left-brain hemisphere was removed surgically to alleviate symptoms of epilepsy. This procedure would be disastrous on adults. However, young children appear to have a high degree of adaptability, or plasticity, in their brain function. The number and location of neuron connections is highly adaptable. A year after her operation, she showed virtually no symptoms and could see and think clearly. She proceeded to develop normally, did better at school than others with a whole brain, even though she only physically possessed half a brain.[4]
Clearly, for this outcome to have been achieved, the girl must have been able to form new neural connections that allowed all function to be taken over by the remaining half of the brain. She re-programmed her brain because she had the conscious will, and the ability to do so. Her conscious mind changed the construction of her brain.
For this to be possible, that means brain and mind cannot be the same thing, though they are closely related things. If the mind is the product of the brain, we would expect her mind to suffer the massive loss of brain matter. Yet this was evidently not the case over the long term. She was able to overcome the loss of brain tissue and carry on after a period of recovery. If the mind is an illusion, we would not expect it to have the ability to rewire the functioning of the brain. And yet this is evidently what it did.
2. Terminal Lucidity
Sometimes, in the last week or day of a terminal patient’s life, they regain capabilities that are not easily explainable by normal neurological processes. David was dying of lung cancer. His head was stuffed full of tumors, and on his final scan, he had virtually no brain tissue left. All he had were haphazardly growing grey masses. He was non-responsive, his body kept alive on machines.
On his final evening, the consultant checked on him and noticed his breathing indicated that death was imminent. He did not expect David to survive the night. The next morning, the room had been cleaned, and the bed made up following David’s death. However – the nurse that had cared for David as he died stopped the doctor in the corridor to talk.
He woke up, you know, doctor – just after you left – and said goodbye to them all. Like I’m talkin’ to you right here. Like a miracle. He talked to them and patted them and smiled for about five minutes. Then he went out again, and he passed in the hour.[5]
This was a wonderful opportunity for David’s heartbroken family to say goodbye. But notice this. It couldn’t have been David’s brain that woke him up. He didn’t have any brain tissue, only metastases. This strongly suggests that David’s mind was able to push through the physical impairment for a short time prior to death. This is hard to explain on a materialistic understanding of brain but makes sense on the non-locality of consciousness hypothesis.
3 – Conscious During Brain Malfunction
On patients under general anaesthetic, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and registration of electrical activity of the brain (EEG) show functional loss of all major brain tissue. Connections are temporary severed while under anaesthetic, making information flow between neural centres impossible. In this state, conscious experiences should not be possible on a materialistic understanding of consciousness (where mind = brain). Van Lommel gives the following report from an anaesthetised patient that challenges materialism:
I suddenly became aware of hovering over the foot of the operating table and watching the activity…soon it dawned on me that this was my own body. So I … heard everything that was said: ‘Hurry up, you bloody bastard,’ was one thing I remember them shouting … I could also read the minds of everybody in the room…I later learned … it took four and a half minutes to get my heart … going again. As a rule, oxygen deprivation causes brain damage after three or three and a half minutes. I also heard the doctor say that he thought I was dead. Later he confirmed saying this, and he was astonished to learn that I’d heard it. I also told them that they should mind their language during surgery.[6]
A common response to this phenomenon is to suppose that the person’s hearing remained active during the procedure, and they imagined a visual scene based on prior experience of medical procedures seen in their lives, perhaps on TV or films. If so, their memory is not an example of the non-locality of consciousness.
However, this materialistic explanation has been well studied by Dr Penny Sartori. She shows convincingly that the recall of patients who claimed an out-of-body (OBE) experience is much more accurate compared to patient recall based who did not claim an OBE and were working on their limited background knowledge.[7]We therefore have good reasons to believe van Lommel’s patient when she claims to have seen and heard her operation while physically unconscious and unable to do so in a natural sense.
4 – Conclusion
The clinical examples quoted in this blog are not easily explained on a materialistic account of consciousness. They are, however, compatible with the non-locality of consciousness. When taken together with the evidence of NDE, this forms a robust argument for the non-locality of consciousness and refutes the physical argument for consciousness.
[1] Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, (1991), mentioned in Pim van Lommel, The Continuity of Consciousness A Concept Based on Scientific Research on Near-Death Experiences During Cardiac Arrest, Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/essay-contest/.
I’ve been reading about Vipassana Meditation this week.[1] This is a practical approach to finding peace and freedom from suffering in life. Given the fears many people carry around with them today (will I have enough to live on, will there be a war here, will my family be okay), I can see why a strategy for peace and freedom is attractive.
The Buddhism on which Vipassana is based is one of the world’s oldest religions, starting somewhere around the fifth century BCE, although it is hard to be precise on those dates.
Vipassana seems to be built upon some core Buddhist doctrines. Oxford University Buddhist Scholar Sarah Shaw says that while there are many different schools of Buddhism, they tend to share these core tenants of the Buddhist dharma, or law:[2]
Impermanence (anicca). Huston Smith describes this as an ontology where nothing in nature is identical with what it was a moment before.[3] John Dickson suggests this means there is no Buddhist thinker, just thoughts.[4]
Suffering (dukkha). This is the first of the Siddhartha Gautama’s (the Buddha’s) Noble Truths. Everything is impermanent and imperfect, and it leads to suffering in our lives.
Egoless-ness (anatta). This is about an absence of self, or the illusion of self. The Dali Lama says this means people possess no immutable essence,[5] and Zen scholar Masao Abe notes that there is therefore no Hindu atman or eternal self, just anatman.[6]
The Buddhist dharma teaches that while there is no self, we are composed of five parts or skandas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness that appear together like grains of sand in a pile.[7] Our goal is enlightenment, and one way that many Buddhists work towards that is by following the eightfold path, which is moral instruction.
In this blog, I will assess the metaphysical problems that result from this ontology. I will argue these problems seriously undermine the rationality of Buddhism as a world view. Consequently, while it is right to seek peace and freedom in life, we need instead to find these important things in something which is solid and real.
The Problem of Buddhist Ego-lessness
There is a metaphysical commitment that seems to be held by almost everyone, including Buddhists. J P Moreland describes this as the absolute view of personal identity. A person moves through time and exists fully at each moment of his life, even though his physical attributes (e.g. height and weight) and mental attributes (e.g. understanding) change throughout the whole of life.[8] The Buddhist talks about achieving peace and freedom in life, and ultimately attaining enlightenment. So, the Buddhist makes the metaphysical commitment of “sameness through change.”
Yet there is a problem. On Buddhism, we are under the illusion that there is actually a self. There is no eternal self. Rather, there is a pile of parts. I am therefore defined by what my parts are now. I do not have a simple core essence, or soul, that defines me. If the Buddhist is right that I am an assembly of parts, then as one part changes, I therefore must necessarily become a different person. Why? Because I am defined by my parts. Once a part is different, so am I. Imagine swiping through a sequence of photographs of different people on your phone. That’s what change actually must accomplish on the Buddhist view of self.
The Buddhist talks about “my freedom,” and ”my enlightenment.” They apparently assume that the same person exists through all the changes that lead towards eventual enlightenment. So, they are committed to “sameness through change.” But their view of self does not allow for it. The idea that we are a collection of parts, and the idea we are a simple core self, are mutually contradictory. And “sameness through change” is only possible on the latter. This is a metaphysical problem for Buddhism.
Joe cannot become enlightened on the Buddhist view of the self. As Joe’s skandas change, his identity alters in metaphysical terms. Joe is no longer Joe anymore, his changes have made him into someone else. If Joe is Siddhartha Gautama, then Buddhism has a problem because Siddhartha can never attain enlightenment on his own doctrine of personhood.
So – there is a big problem with the doctrine of ego-less-ness. It makes the Buddhist aim at freedom and enlightenment impossible. But here’s a second problem.
Why Be Good on Buddhism?
There appears to be no absolute good or evil on Buddhism. After all, “all things … abstract concepts … are devoid of objective, independent existence.”[9] Abe notes that good and evil are co-dependent, they arise together, and the “distinction between [them] is not only relativised but the two values are reversed.”[10] If Buddhism recognises no objective moral categories, perhaps good and evil are just human conventions?
Yet at the same time, Abe requires the Buddhist to “seek good and avoid evil.”[11] And the Dali Lama agrees, seeing personal values as, “the basic, innate capacity for compassion in all human beings … [all people have] an equal potential for goodness.”[12] So – on the one hand, moral knowledge is available to Abe and Lama and moral statements are factual and have objective meaning. Yet on the other hand, they say moral categories do not exist in an absolute sense. If everything is impermanent, there are no absolutes, so it is not clear how Abe and Lama can legitimately require us to seek the good. Worse, if Abe is right that the meaning of good and evil is reversed on Buddhism, then we cannot objectively assess the rightness of anything. Including Buddhism!
However, in the real world, the problem of evil exists. We intuitively know the good we should do but tend not to do. And human beings recognise evil actions when they see them and rail against them, demanding justice to be done and for the evil to cease. We might disagree on what constitutes “evil,” but people don’t tend to doubt the existence of “evil” actions themselves. Buddhism therefore seems to be at odds with the intuitive understanding of people. Could this be a strength of Buddhism?
Perhaps not. Abe says the solution to the problem of evil is to recognise that we need to overcome good-evil duality. We must be freed from all desires and ethical demands. The Buddhist solution to the problem of evil is found in the realization of absolute nothingness; the awakening to sunyata.[13] But if he is right about that, why it is right for good actions to be prioritised on Buddhism anyway? Why should anyone want to be good on Buddhism? The answer seems to be that we must get past good and evil and achieve personal freedom from suffering. It is not about developing moral virtue. In that case the danger for the Buddhist seems to be moral indifference. If the Buddhist’s aim is to overcome thinking about good and evil actions, then this means Buddhism lacks the resources to justify ethical behaviour. They can ask us to follow the eightfold path and be good, but in the end, there’s no ethical reason for it.
This has an impact on how we view human atrocities on Buddhism. Think of the attempted genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. If there is no good or evil, there really is no difference between the perpetrators and the victims. If perpetrators are no different from victims, why should we do anything to stop the genocide? Why should we have a justice system that holds people accountable for crimes? This view is at odds with our deepest moral insights.
Why should we be good on Buddhism? There doesn’t seem to be a good reason. Abe admits that Buddhist doctrine cannot ground or motivate compassionate, moral behaviour without Christianity. “Buddhism [needs] … a serious encounter with Christianity which is ethical as well as religious.”[14] Maybe this is required because Christianity is a closer account of reality than Buddhism.
Conclusion
Vipassana calls us to cultivate freedom and peace in our lives. This is also an important call in the New Testament. People who welcome Jesus to lead their lives can grow in the fruit of the Spirit. This includes love, joy and peace.[15] Both Buddhism and Christianity point us to these virtues, yet the core doctrines of Buddhism prevent a person from developing them as a Buddhist.
Also, there seems to be no reason to prioritise these as good things on Buddhism. I suggest the Buddhist’s goal is right, but their means of getting there is not. Like Masao Abe, it seems like the Buddhist needs a genuine encounter with true Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ to effect real positive change in their life. Christianity is rooted in the historical resurrection of Christ, it offers an understanding of personhood consistent with the life change that it offers, and it also offers to solve the problem of evil rather than to claim the problem is of no ultimate importance.
[3] Huston Smith, The World’s Religions, (HarperOne, 1991), 117.
[4] John Dickson, A Doubters Guide to World Religions, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2022), 76.
[5] His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom How Science and Spirituality Can Serve Our World, (London: Little Brown, 2005), 49.
[6] Masao Abe, “The Problem of Evil in Christianity and Buddhism”, in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Mutual Renewal and Transformation, ed. Paul O. Ingram and Frederick J. Streng, (University of Hawaii Press, 1986), 145.
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