Interview with Bruce Greyson by Richard Martini

Richard Martini is a film director and author fascinated by the topic of life after death, and is convinced of its existence based on his own experiences and research. This was an 'interview' he conducted, basing questions off comments Dr Greyson made at a talk in Dharamsala about consciousness:


https://medium.com/@richmartini/intervie...894883edca

On materialism:

Most western scientists assume consciousness is produced in some way by the brain. There is of course a lot of evidence for that position, common sense evidence from our everyday lives; when you drink too much alcohol or get knocked on your head, you don’t think very clearly. We also have more sophisticated evidence from science of the link between the brain and consciousness; we can measure electricity in the brain during certain kinds of mental tasks, we can stimulate parts of the brain and record what experiences result and we can removed parts of the brain and observe the effects on behavior.

All this evidence suggests the brain is indeed involved in thinking, perception and memory, but it doesn’t necessary suggest the brain causes those thoughts or memories. As you listen to me speak, there’s electric activity in the temporal lobe of your brain, but does that mean your brain, or suggest that your temporal lobe is producing the sound of my voice? Not at all — all the studies showing brain areas associated with different mental functions only show correlation, not causation...

We don’t know how many neurons you need to collectively formulate a thought and we don’t know how that collection of neurons can think when a single neuron can’t. Scientists get around this problem by saying the brain is an “emergent property;” when a large enough mass of brain cells get together it creates thought. What does that mean?

We have no idea what that means. Saying something is an “emergent property” is a way of saying that it is a mystery we can’t explain. There is in fact no known mechanism by which physical processes in the brain (or anywhere else) demonstrates the brain can produce experiences, thoughts, perceptions or memories.The materialist view of the world fails to deal with how the brain can produce a thought or feeling or indeed anything that the mind does. And yet despite having no idea how it could work, most neuroscientists continue to maintain this 19th century materialist view that the brain, in some miraculous way we don’t understand, produces consciousness. And they discount, or ignore the evidence that consciousness in extreme circumstances can function very well without our brain.

On NDEs specifically:

There are four lines of evidence to explore. Number one is the unexplained recovery of consciousness for people who’ve been unconscious for prolonged periods of time moments or days before their death. Number two is complex consciousness in people with minimal brain tissue. Number three is surprisingly complex consciousness in near death experiencers when the brain is not functioning or functions at a diminished level, and number four; young children who recall details of a past life...

...The paranormal features often reported in the NDE include a sense of leaving the physical body, sometimes called an out of body experience (OBE), where a persons’ physical senses, such as hearing or visual experience become more vivid than ever before. Some experience hearing sounds that don’t exist in this life, and a sense of ESP; knowing things beyond the range of physical senses such as things happening at a remote location.

And finally, they may report visions of the future. Many report in their NDEs they entered some other or unearthly world or realm of existence; many report they came to a border they could not cross, or a point of no return that if they had crossed, they wouldn’t be allowed to return to life. Many report encountering or seeing a mystical being, and some report seeing deceased spirits, often loved ones, welcoming them into another realm, or in some cases sending them back to another life.

He also gives various examples of anomalous and veridical phenomena in NDEs he's studied or investigated, as well as his views on past life research and, as mentioned, terminal lucidity. 

There’s a lot of evidence from scientific research that the brain, under extraordinary circumstances, seems to come unlinked from consciousness, and consciousness can in fact, function better without the mediation of the physical brain. Again this evidence is not accepted or known by most American scientists; nevertheless it is there, it is reliable and reproducible evidence. We have cases of people whose brains have been deteriorating for years suddenly think clearly on their deathbeds, people who function normally sometimes with high intelligence who have virtually no brain tissue, we have people who during a near death experience think more clearly than ever, when their brains are not functioning. And we have very young children who can barely speak, who talk about their past lives with accurate details.