A materialist would argue that nothing you describe rules out malfunction in a brain failing rapidly due to oxygen starvation, and that the commonality of experiences is explicable in terms of common failure modes in effectively identical brain architecture. (Just about everyone's visual cortex works about the same, etc.)

I think it's cute how hardcore materialists believe it is even in theory possible to distinguish their position from ideological simulationism. Maybe in a thousand years. Not now. But phenomenology is the name of the philosophical discipline that you are now struggling to recapitulate.

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BoardsOfCanada 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So we agree but one point: There are tens of thousands of NDEs happening under monitored conditions (operating tables) when we know for a fact that the brain is out of oxygen and energy according to any know physical (not to mention evolutionary) mechanism, and that has to be explained.

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tsimionescu 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If the brain is ever completely inactive (as seen in EEGs) for any length of time, there is no chance of recovery from that state. The body can be kept alive, but the brain is gone and will never have any other activity again.

So, I'm not sure what you mean by "out of oxygen and energy according to any phsysical mechanism" - for any patient who has ever recovered to tell a tale of an NDE, we know for a fact that their brain was constantly producing measurable electrical signals for the entire time.

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Swizec 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> NDEs happening under monitored conditions (operating tables)

I had general anesthesia 10 days ago. There was no NDE, felt like they flicked an off switch then turned me back on a few hours later.

They wheeled me from the prep room towards the OR, opened the big door, and then I was in a different room waking up from anesthesia. That’s it.

	▲	BobbyTables2 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That’s been my exact experience in each of my 5 occasions. I also once semi-fainted while standing up. Felt unusually calm and care free as my head bashed against a nearby object. Fortunately it wasn’t serious.
	▲	BoardsOfCanada 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yes they don't happen 100% of the time or even 10%.

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throwanem 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You also need to study cellular biology, human physiology, and what actually goes on during anesthesia, of all of which (at least!) you are radically uninformed in a way that renders your line of argument specious beyond recovery into meaningful discussion. Please don't reply to me further on this topic.

	▲	BoardsOfCanada 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ok :D

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card_zero 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You think it's cute, do you? But there are endless unfalsifiable and silly alternative explanations for everything. They're distinguished only by being silly. The observation that everything could be a simulation deserves a "so what". Maybe you're the cutie pie.

	▲	throwanem 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It means something to you that I should be, eh? I don't really take a position in the matter, but one can't spend all day reading - though feel free to continue flattering my looks here while I do so, of course! Being called cute is a rare pleasure indeed for me, these decades.