How did the ability to have a near death experience evolve?

Question

Bear with me: if a near death experience is something humans evolved to ease the trauma of death, how did it get in the gene pool, seeing as the person was dead? Did that many prehistoric people get mauled, trampled, speared, whatever, have an NDE, amazingly resuscitate after nearly dying, and then go on to have offspring who inherited that ability? This is the only part of the "NDE is evolutionary" theory that I can't figure out. From a materialist point of view, it seems statistically improbable.

Sigh..NDEs are dismissed by some in the scientific community as merely the brain's way of coping with the shock and trauma of impending death. This ability was then passed on to new generations If the person DIED how did that happen?

Lobo--I did take into account the increased likelihood of traumatic death, but of course, have no statistical data to work with.

Answer 1

The research in this field, such as the 2003 Lancet study, suggests a correlation between transcendental experiences and NDEs. Perhaps meditative research will give us some insight. The real issue is not the experience itself, but the abiltiy to remember it afterwards. Meditative (and other) research into consciousness in general suggests that proto-mental characteristics are inherent to the universe, and our physiologies only "receive" consciousness, like a TV receiving programs. Our personality only emerges from our nervous system shaping the input/output. This is what I'm doing my PhD on now, applying meditative techniques to the direct study of coinsciousness.

Answer 2

Interesting question.

I've always posited that the NDE phenomenon is the brain's way of anesthetizing the majority of the body's cells while shutting down all but only the absolutely essential core functions as the brain desperately fights to live. If you had a bunch of oxygen-starved cells each exercising its own encoded survival instinct you'd have a body gone haywire, and the brain's ability to troubleshoot would be compromised.

I think that you're underestimating several things in your skepticism of the likelihood of the NDE's heritability. First, I think it's safe to assume that there have already been at least several billion humans who have cycled through an entire life span even before humans entered the modern era. I think it's safe to assume that the occurrence of the NDE phenomenon is far more often than just a handful of instances every generation.

Also, undoubtedly the early periods of human development were far more dangerous than the modern human era, so I think it's safe to assume that the conditions for the development of the NDE phenomenon were more favorable.

For the posters stating that NDEs cannot be explained by science, that is patently untrue. All of the sequelae of a NDE can be replicated by the administration of the pharmaceutical compound ketamine at certain dosage levels.

It's a chemical process in the brain, nothing more.

Answer 3

NDEs can't be explained by science or evolution. During documented NDEs people were unconscious (medically dead obviously), sometimes even with their eyes taped shut for surgical purposes. Yet they could detail what happened during the event so clearly it's impossible to fake. In fact they often even saw what happened outside the surgery, in the waiting room, detailing accurately who was there, though it being impossible for them to know at the time.
NDEs through evolution? Makes no sense

Answer 4

This has come about through many people who were coming to a deeper experience of themselves as divine beings.Death is not to be feared for it is only the discarding of a worn out body and the requiring of new ones to house the divine soul that dwells within us all.

Answer 5

The body saw a need. I really don't think it evolved. I think it's something inherent in almost all living creatures. Notice how a gazelle stops fighting when captured by the lion. I think it's just part of how our body deals with death.

Answer 6

Next thing you'll ask is "How did UFOs evolve?"

Answer 7

NDEs aren't real, God is.

Answer 8

NDE are real. But God isn't.