In Pim van Lommel’s “Near-death experiences: the experience of the self as real and not as an illusion”, van Lommel argues that humans have non-physical entities, or souls, as well as physical bodies, which can be shown to be true through near-death experiences. Meeting with deceased relatives, life reviews, and out-of-body experiences are all typical elements of near-death experiences. In this paper, I will support van Lommel’s argument for dualism. I will focus on the elements of near-death experiences and how they support this claim. Dualism is the view that a person’s mental life is owing to their soul—a nonphysical entity (Margolis). The opposite of dualism is materialism, the concept that there are no nonphysical mental entities (Margolis).
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Although there is some scientific evidence backing this materialist viewpoint, it does not explain how these individuals would know other people’s thoughts at a given point in their life. Going off of the logic of the parameters of the physical senses, it isn’t plausible without a non-physical entity to be able to essentially read minds or exchange streams of consciousness. van Lommel suggests that this is due to the entanglement and connection of people’s consciousness’s at a certain point in time (23). Again, this is a non-physical …show more content…
From this, van Lommel infers that time and distance does not exist during a life review, therefore, disobeying the boundaries of the physical world. This further suggests that non-physical entities exist.
Out of the three elements of near-death experiences discussed in this paper, out-of-body experience is the element with the most scientific backing. Out-of-body experiences occur during CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), when the patient is “clinically dead”. During this process, patients report being able to see the room from a spot above their physical body. Doctors and nurses present in the room can then later verify the patient’s description.
Scientists and materialists might argue that this could again just be a hallucination or a dream. However, as van Lommel references in his article, in a review of 93 reports on out-of-body experiences during near-death experiences, “about 90% were found to be completely accurate” (22) accounts of what they saw during the out-of-body experience compared to reality. This suggests that it cannot be a hallucination, since hallucinations have no “basis in reality” (van Lommel, 23). Therefore, this isn’t just an image created by the patient’s brain, leading to the conclusion of possible non-physical
Although there is some scientific evidence backing this materialist viewpoint, it does not explain how these individuals would know other people’s thoughts at a given point in their life. Going off of the logic of the parameters of the physical senses, it isn’t plausible without a non-physical entity to be able to essentially read minds or exchange streams of consciousness. van Lommel suggests that this is due to the entanglement and connection of people’s consciousness’s at a certain point in time (23). Again, this is a non-physical …show more content…
From this, van Lommel infers that time and distance does not exist during a life review, therefore, disobeying the boundaries of the physical world. This further suggests that non-physical entities exist.
Out of the three elements of near-death experiences discussed in this paper, out-of-body experience is the element with the most scientific backing. Out-of-body experiences occur during CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), when the patient is “clinically dead”. During this process, patients report being able to see the room from a spot above their physical body. Doctors and nurses present in the room can then later verify the patient’s description.
Scientists and materialists might argue that this could again just be a hallucination or a dream. However, as van Lommel references in his article, in a review of 93 reports on out-of-body experiences during near-death experiences, “about 90% were found to be completely accurate” (22) accounts of what they saw during the out-of-body experience compared to reality. This suggests that it cannot be a hallucination, since hallucinations have no “basis in reality” (van Lommel, 23). Therefore, this isn’t just an image created by the patient’s brain, leading to the conclusion of possible non-physical