Thank you. Finally, we have an answer that at least makes some sense.
This appears to be the first step most people take. Belief in an afterlife begins with the desire for it to be true.
Well, that isn’t really the sceptical approach, is it? The sceptic weighs all evidence for and against and then comes to a conclusion. Setting out to find ways to convince yourself something is true leads to confirmation bias.
That's true, but I'm not approaching this like a scientist. I have a vested interest in convincing myself it is true, when my faith in an afterlife is strong, my life here on earth is happier. When my faith in an afterlife is shaky, I experience depression, an exaggerated fear of death and an inability to function at my highest potential. So, even if there is no afterlife, there are benefits for me believing in it. So, I admit confirmation bias and actively seek out readings and research to support the afterlife. Like I said, my goal isn't to convince skeptics, just to quiet the skeptical part of my mind.
Convincing of what, that people begin to have hallucinations when the brain is starved of oxygen and glucose and is no longer processing sensory information correctly? Bear in mind these people are near death. Their bodies and brains are about to die and are certainly not functioning normally. Yes, they have dreams and hallucinations, but you can hardly trust that what they experienced in those hallucinations is real. It is not surprising that, statistically, when people’s brains are placed into the same oxygen depleted state, most of them experience similar sensations. You could say that, statistically, most people see stars when they receive a blow to the head, but that doesn’t mean the stars are real. I think you may find, if you explore this further, that those who don’t believe in an afterlife don’t sense it during a near death experience. It is those who already believe in an afterlife that see a light and feel drawn towards it or have similar sensations of an afterlife. There are more people who believe in an afterlife than those who don’t so it should be expected that, statistically, sensations of an afterlife are in the majority.
First, analogies are not evidence. Second, your analogy is backwards. As the body dies, the brain can no longer sense its surroundings so it tries to fill in the gaps with imaginary sensations. When your brain dies, reality hasn’t gone, but you can no longer connect with it. Near death experiences aren’t evidence that an afterlife exists. They are evidence that if you die slowly enough, there is a brief period where your brain is disconnected from your senses and imagines a subjective reality.
Actually, the particular book I was thinking of was about contacting people who were long dead. Basically, they set up a study where a few people who claimed to be mediums tried to contact a dead relative of a subject, and filled out a questionnaire. They also had a control person try to contact the dead relative and fill out the same questionnaire. Assuming they were honest about the results of the study and they used the controls they claimed in the book, there was a statistically significant difference in the number of correct results from the proclaimed medium and the control. I've got the book around somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.
I've read some of the explanations of NDE's along the lines of what you say, but I do have to wonder about the few cases I've read of involving NDE's of someone blind from birth that seemed to indicate vision. In a sense, though, it's like we are all fish living in the ocean arguing about whether or not there exists another world where creatures breathe air, not water.
It's interesting, though, that you mention that people who don't believe in the afterlife don't have NDE's. Is there some documentation of that?
One other thing that has me leaning more towards the belief that there is something, the soul, that is beyond our physical body, is the whole concept of free will.
Physical objects don't really have free will. If I pick up a rock and drop it, it doesn't have a choice about how far it falls. If I know all the variables, I can predict exactly where it would land. Objects are governed by laws of physics and chemistry. If you mix two chemicals together, they don't get to choose whether or not they will react, it's pre-determined.
Then, I think about animals. Do they have any free will? If a snake hasn't eaten in a while, if it sees food, it will eat. If a snake has just fed, will it eat readily available food? Can it make a choice, or are its actions completely predetermined by it's biology? Are we just more complex animals? Can we make a choice or does our biology completely determine our actions? If we can make a choice to do one thing or another, what physical mechanism allows us to make that choice? Even massively complex computers do not have free will.
