Near Death Argument Analysis

Words: 1297
Pages: 6

Going back to the first argument of corroborated veridical NDE perceptions it is important to present the opposing side of view. This argument is one of the most significant and most-used due to how difficult it is to argue against. As a review, some people that experience near death experiences are able to relay the medical procedures, conversations and things that surround their body while they were clinically dead. The naturalistic argument against these occurrences is mainly that they are good guesses. If it is simply only a good guess then should there not be an explanation for the ability to accurately “guess” during an NDE as well? Good guessing is a total sub-par explanation for near death experiences. To put it to test, Dr. Satori …show more content…
Think of a dream. Most dreams end abruptly, there is never a final ending to the storyline. Stories cut off, conversations cut short. And this is reasonable because we expect them to abruptly end when we wake up. So what is the reasoning behind the connection of near death experiences to dreams/hallucinations? How could a near death experience be a dream or hallucination if they consistently have closure? If we were to follow this point of view, near death experiences would end when sedation is stopped or when a patient is resuscitated. Going back to my second argument, another commonality amongst NDEs is that people are brought back or involved in their return to their bodies. In most cases, their return to consciousness is directed by a spiritual being. A good response to this claim would be “what about the people in NDEs that weren’t brought back by spiritual beings?” Good question, but Miller’s studies reported that “not one of these NDErs reported a disruptive ending. Indeed, the majority spoke of a conversation ending in a decision to return, or just knowing that it was time to return. But even in cases that didn’t include a conscious decision to return, I saw no NDE that was cut off abruptly, like mid-sentence” (Miller 44-45). Near death experiences could be compared to movie scripts; they run their course and end in an appropriate manner. Because of this, it would be better to label near death experiences as a encounter with the “other side” rather than labelling it as a common dream or