Near-­Death Experiences and the Mind-­Body Relationship: A Systems-­Theoretical Persp

Near-­Death Experiences and the Mind-­Body Relationship: A Systems-­Theoretical Perspective

David Rousseau

In this paper I support the view that NDEs provide empirical sup-port for mind-body substance dualism and argue that a systems-theoretical an-alysis of the evidence is required to obtain valid insights into the nature of the mind as a substantial object existing in addition to the body. Without such an approach, systems phenomena such as property emergence and property mask-ing could lead to mischaracterization of both the nature of the mind itself and the ways in which the mind and body work together holistically. Applying a systems-theoretical perspective, I show that some psychic abilities are emergent capacities of the mind-body system, that ordinary faculties such as emotional perceptiveness can be understood within the same framework as extraordinary faculties such as telepathy, and that NDE evidence favors a naturalistic form of Substance Dualism.

Interesting paper, though I suspect his "substance dualsim" is my soul/body distinction occurring within a single substance as the Ground of Being....