Internetado
2020-05-24 20:31:59 UTC
Approaching Light
Historically, people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs)
described them as blissful or peaceful - and neuroscientists still
aren';t sure why that is.
But famed neuroscientist Christof Koch, president and chief scientist
of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, has some ideas. In an article
for Scientific American, Koch probes historical accounts of NDEs and
the underlying science of consciousness to unravel what';s going on in
a person';s brain that makes them feel blissful and accepting of their
looming demise.
Hidden Mechanism
Koch points to decades of research on NDEs that describe them as vivid,
real-seeming experiences that tend to be blissful. But while many
survivors describe their experiences in spiritual terms, Koch remains
grounded in biology.
"I accept the reality of these intensely felt experiences," Koch wrote
in SciAm. "They are as authentic as any other subjective feeling or
perception. As a scientist, however, I operate under the hypothesis
that all our thoughts, memories, percepts and experiences are an
ineluctable consequence of the natural causal powers of our brain
rather than of any supernatural ones."
Shutting Down
Koch hypothesizes that the root cause of an NDE is core parts of the
brain shutting down due to trauma or a lack of oxygen - and compared
the resulting rush to that of extreme behaviors like free diving,
mountain climbing, or even erotic asphyxiation.
"Local brain regions go offline one after another," Koch wrote in
SciAm. "The mind, whose substrate is whichever neurons remain intact,
then does what it always does: it tells a story shaped by a person's
experience, memory and cultural expectations."
READ MORE: What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain
[Scientific American]
More on Christof Koch: Neuroscientist: Conventional Computers Will
Never Be Conscious
The post A Famed Neuroscientist Is Investigating Near-Death Experiences
appeared first on Futurism.
https://futurism.com/neuroscientist-unravel-near-death-experiences
Historically, people who have had near-death experiences (NDEs)
described them as blissful or peaceful - and neuroscientists still
aren';t sure why that is.
But famed neuroscientist Christof Koch, president and chief scientist
of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, has some ideas. In an article
for Scientific American, Koch probes historical accounts of NDEs and
the underlying science of consciousness to unravel what';s going on in
a person';s brain that makes them feel blissful and accepting of their
looming demise.
Hidden Mechanism
Koch points to decades of research on NDEs that describe them as vivid,
real-seeming experiences that tend to be blissful. But while many
survivors describe their experiences in spiritual terms, Koch remains
grounded in biology.
"I accept the reality of these intensely felt experiences," Koch wrote
in SciAm. "They are as authentic as any other subjective feeling or
perception. As a scientist, however, I operate under the hypothesis
that all our thoughts, memories, percepts and experiences are an
ineluctable consequence of the natural causal powers of our brain
rather than of any supernatural ones."
Shutting Down
Koch hypothesizes that the root cause of an NDE is core parts of the
brain shutting down due to trauma or a lack of oxygen - and compared
the resulting rush to that of extreme behaviors like free diving,
mountain climbing, or even erotic asphyxiation.
"Local brain regions go offline one after another," Koch wrote in
SciAm. "The mind, whose substrate is whichever neurons remain intact,
then does what it always does: it tells a story shaped by a person's
experience, memory and cultural expectations."
READ MORE: What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about the Brain
[Scientific American]
More on Christof Koch: Neuroscientist: Conventional Computers Will
Never Be Conscious
The post A Famed Neuroscientist Is Investigating Near-Death Experiences
appeared first on Futurism.
https://futurism.com/neuroscientist-unravel-near-death-experiences
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Eduardo
Eduardo