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  • A Famed Neuroscientist Is Investigating Near-Death Experiences

    From Internetado@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 24 17:31:59 2020
    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

    --

    Eduardo

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Edward Montague@21:1/5 to Internetado on Sat Jun 13 00:53:05 2020
    On Monday, May 25, 2020 at 11:15:07 AM UTC+12, Internetado wrote:
    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

    --

    Eduardo


    That's only part of the story. The other is what the victim of this unfortunate experience does with their life afterwards. Also how those around them might interact, or not with them.

    I wonder if this Neurological Scientist has
    had a NDE himself.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)