James Clement van Pelt

Death is certainly the end of phenomenal experience, which by definition depends on the physical senses and their attendant neurochemical processes. But death may also be an experience in itself. Near-death experience seems to happen in the liminal space between the two.

Death seems beyond our ken to comprehend and certainly to research beyond the mortal veil. Yet the stunning results of recent neurological research conducted at the University of Michigan, combined with modest inferences drawn from logic and our own incorrigible personal experience, suggest some new perspectives on the experience of death — in particular, whether experience persists beyond the time at which brain activity ceases irrevocably, and what may underlie such experiences. This presentation reviews that research and explores such inferences concerning what each of us can reasonably expect to experience when our physical bodies meet their inevitable demise. More particularly, a hypothesis is advanced that evolution may transcend its biological limits.

jvp@CTFolk.com