CBS News explores the science behind Near Death Experiences (NDEs). Aired February 23, 2007
“The last great mystery of science”; “the most baffling problem in the science of the mind”; this is how scientists talk about consciousness, but what if our conscious experience is all a grand illusion?
Brockman asked about 130 scientists and several artists the following question: What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see? Their two- to three-page prognostications bid farewell to the present while disagreeing on the mode of change. Several respondents espy catastrophes such as nuclear war or global warming, but the majority tell readers to expect a fundamental alteration in the human species. This group predicts that a stupendous expansion in computational capacity allied to genomic engineering will transform the human body, brain included, such that one writer suggests the end of Homo sapiens and its succession by Homo evolutis.
Dr. Susan Blackmore--a psychologist and long-time Zen practitioner--shares with us the discoveries that she made while writing her latest book, Ten Zen Questions. Listen in to find out what she discovered after many, many hours of asking questions, such as: "Am I conscious now?", "What was I conscious of a moment ago?", & "There is no time. What is memory?"
The Digest editor has invited some of the world's leading psychologists to look inwards and share, in 150 words, one nagging thing they still don't understand about themselves.
Putting it that way makes the answer easier to see. Memes are a new kind of information - behaviours rather than DNA - copied by a new kind of machinery - brains rather than chemicals inside cells. This is a new evolutionary process because all of the three critical stages - copying, varying and selection - are done by those brains. So does the same apply to new technology?
Blackmore is a parapsychologist who rejects the paranormal, a skeptical investigator of near-death experiences, and a practitioner of Zen. Her explanation of the science of the meme (memetics) is rigorously Darwinian. Because she is a careful thinker (though by no means dull or conventional), the reader ends up with a good idea of what memetics explains well and what it doesn't, and with many ideas about how it can be tested--the very hallmark of an excellent science book. Blackmore's discussion of the "memeplexes" of religion and of the self are sure to be controversial, but she is (as Dawkins says) enormously honest and brave to make a connection between scientific ideas and how one should live one's life.
I recently read in Life magazine about people who have had near-death experiences. These people report walking toward a being of light, feeling totally loved, etc. Do near-death experiences prove there is some type of existence after death?
Susan Blackmore studies memes: ideas that replicate themselves, passing from brain to brain like a physical virus. At TED2008, Blackmore makes a bold new argument: Humanity has spawned a new category of meme, the "teme," which spreads itself via technology -- and invents brand-new ways to keep itself alive
History of life is a history of replicators. Language is a parasite we've adapted to. It may have started out being harmful, but we've developed a symbiotic relationship with it.
In dialogue with skeptics, I often encounter the claim that Susan Blackmore, in Dying to Live, provides scientific proof the near-death experience results from a “dying brain.” Skeptics argue her work disproves the existence of spirit and the afterlife. A close reading of Dying to Live, however, shows otherwise. The following is a critique of the first eight chapters.
A brief entry from Susan Blackmore about 'if we could' experiments and her idea of measuring fMRI of people having NDE to see what happens to the brain during these experiences.
A large list of meme-related links from Blackmore
Susan Blackmore's definition of a meme.
The original recordings of Francis Crick, Daniel Dennett and V.S. Ramachandran talking about consciousness for Susan's book.
Susan Blackmore interviews prominent scientists and philosphers about the nature of consciousness.
Blackmore's research into NDEs.
