Shermer: The inability to test such claims only reinforces them to believers, but the origin has to do with the fact that we cannot imagine being dead. Try it. Try picturing yourself dead. You can’t do it. Oh, you’ll say something like “I see myself lying on the hospital bed / casket with my eyes closed and people standing around crying,” but “you” are still in the scene doing the observing. Being dead would be no different from general anesthesia where you are given an injection and it’s lights out. We imagine death is something like this but the lights come back on and we are wherever we are (Heaven, for instance), but imagine that the lights go out and never come back on. More dramatically, imagine what you were before you were born. You can’t do it. It’s nonsensical. Same as death.
McAfee: Since humans don’t tend to resurrect, is there such a thing as an “actual-death experience” that can be tested under controlled conditions? For the purposes of our discussion, are patients considered “near death” when they enter cardiac arrest?
Shermer: There’s a reason they’re called “near-death” experiences. The patients are not dead. They’re near death. Big difference. An actual-death experience is when someone just dies. It happens millions of times a year—cumulatively more than 100 billion people have lived and died in the past 50,000 years—and not one of them has come back to tell us what it was like on the other side.
McAfee: What do you think about the NDE claims made by patients who were under general anesthesia at the time of the purported visions? Could these experiences persist when the patient has no measurable neuronal activity?
Shermer: Yes, the fact that brain wave activity was not recorded doesn’t mean anything. There may be lots of brain activity that goes unrecorded. So what? Our recording devices are not perfect, nor do they record absolutely everything.
McAfee: How do you explain the similarities in near-death experiences across cultures? Does a scientific understanding account for this?
Shermer: How do you explain the differences in NDEs across cultures? Our brains are all built on the same basic design so of course your occipital lobe lights up when you see something just as mine does because our visual cortex is located there. If there is a real Heaven, why does it vary so much across cultures in NDEs? The prudent answer is that Heaven is all in the mind.
McAfee: Do you think top scientists understand how near-death experiences work quite well? Or is there still a lot of research to be done on the topic?
Shermer: We know a lot more than we used to (again, see The Believing Brain), but we do not have a cogent theory of consciousness yet so until we do there is much speculating going on.
McAfee: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Shermer: Live each day like it was the last, or at least the second to last …
“Assure a man that he has a soul and then frighten him with old wives’ tales as to what is to become of him afterward, and you have hooked a fish, a mental slave.”
—Theodore Dreiser
NOTES
1. Often attributed to Confucius or Tom Hiddleston.
2. Michael Shermer, “What Happens to Consciousness When We Die,” Scientific American, July 1, 2012, www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-to-consciousness-when-we-die/.
3. Peter Tyson, “Meet Your Ancestors,” NOVA scienceNOW, July 1, 2008.
4. David S. Berman et al., “Early Permian Bipedal Reptile,” Science 290, no. 5493 (2000): 969–972.
5. When I say that humans are also animals, some people think I’m advocating for veganism, but that’s not necessarily the case: animals eat other animals every day. I’m not saying it’s “acceptable” for us to do so, because I’m not making a moral judgment, but it is important to point out that, evolutionarily and historically speaking, human beings are omnivores. For specific examples, look no further than our digestive tract, which is different from those we see in strict herbivores, and our enzymes that have also evolved to digest meat.
6. Melissa Hogenboom, “Humans Are Nowhere Near as Special as We Like to Think,” BBC Earth, July 3, 2015, www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150706-humans-are-not-unique-or-special.
7. “The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.”—David Hume
8. “Never believe that animals suffer less than humans. Pain is the same for them that it is for us. Even worse, because they cannot help themselves.”—Dr. Louis J. Camuti
9. “2014 Religious Landscape Study,” Pew Research Center, November 3, 2015, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/10/most-americans-believe-in-heaven-and-hell/.
10. Alan Bernstein, “Heaven and Hell,” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Maryanne Cline Horowitz (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005).
11. “Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy.”—Carl Sagan
12. Eben Alexander, “Proof of Heaven: A Doctor’s Experience with the Afterlife,” Newsweek, October 8, 2012, www.newsweek.com/proof-heaven-doctors-experience-afterlife-65327.
13. Bill Chappell, “Boy Says He Didn’t Go to Heaven; Publisher Says It Will Pull Book,” NPR, January 15, 2015, www.npr.org/sections/thetwoway/2015/01/15/377589757/boy-says-he-didn-t-go-to-heaven-publisher-says-it-will-pull-book.
14. “Because the everyday occurrence is of stimuli coming from the outside, when a part of the brain abnormally generates these illusions, another part of the brain interprets them as external events. Hence, the abnormal is thought to be the paranormal.”—Michael Shermer
15. “Any time scientists disagree, it’s because we have insufficient data. Then we can agree on what kind of data to get; we get the data; and the data solves the problem. Either I’m right or you’re right or we’re both wrong. And we move on. That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.”—Neil deGrasse Tyson
16. Sam Parnia et al., “AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A Prospective Study,” Resuscitation 85, no. 12 (December 2014): 1799–1805.
17. Zalika Klemenc-Ketis et al., “The Effect of Carbon Dioxide on Near-Death Experiences in Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survivors: A Prospective Observational Study,” Critical Care 14, no. 2 (2010).
18. The authors of the study suggest between 11 and 23 percent of cardiac arrest survivors report NDEs.
19. James Owen, “Near-Death Experiences Explained?” National Geographic, April 10, 2010, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100408-near-death-experiences-blood-carbon-dioxide/.
20. Chris French, “Near-Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” Progress in Brain Research 150 (2005): 351–367.
21. Michael Raduga, “REM sleep: A Cause of Near-Death Experiences,” Phase Research Center, 2012, research.obe4u.com/nde-simulating-experiment/.
22. Sharon Hill, “No, This Study Is Not Evidence for ‘Life after Death,’” James Randi Educational Foundation, October 8, 2015, web.randi.org/swift/no-this-study-is-not-evidence-for-life-after-death.
23. Dean Mobbs and Caroline Watt. “There is nothing paranormal about near-death experiences: how neuroscience can explain seeing bright lights, meeting the dead, or being convinced you are one of them.” Trends in cognitive sciences, 15.10 (2011): 447-449.
24. Bruce Greyson, “The Incidence of Near-Death Experiences,” Medicine Psychiatry 1 (1998): 92–99.
25. G. Gallup and W. Proctor, Adventures in Immortality: A Look Beyond the Threshold of Death (New York: McGraw Hill, 1982), 198–200. “Have you, yourself, ever been on the verge of death or had a ‘close call’ which involved any unusual experience at that time?” Nationally 15 percent responded “yes.”
26. Satwant Pasricha, “A Systematic Survey of Near-Death Experiences in South India.” Journal of Scientific Exploration. Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer 1993): 161-171.
27. John Belanti et al., “Phenomenology of Near-Death Experiences: A Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Transcultural Psychiatry 45, no. 1 (March 2008): 121–133.
29. Marinus van der Sluijs, “Three Ancient Reports of Near-Death Experiences: Bremmer Revisited,” Journal of Near-Death Studies 27, no. 4 (Summer 2009).
30. Philippe Charlier, “Oldest Medical Description of a Near Death Experience (NDE), France, 18th Century,” Resuscitation 9, no. 85 (2014): e155.
31. This hypothesis directly contradicts modern research that suggests a lack of blood to the brain may play a role in NDEs, but it is important to recognize this effort to reach a plausible scientific answer.
32. Buddhism itself is a commonly misunderstood or misinterpreted religious tradition. The American media’s portrayal of Buddhism is one way to account for incongruities between how the tradition is understood and how it is actually practiced, but there are many others. Read more at David G. McAfee, “Buddhisms: Lived and Portrayed Traditions,” The Skeptical Writings of David G. McAfee, December 1, 2010, davidgmcafee.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/buddhisms-lived-and-portrayed-traditions/.
33. You know what I mean if you’ve ever heard someone say, “Karma’s a bitch!”
34. If you get your education on karmic principles from TV shows like My Name Is Earl, you are looking in the wrong place.
35. It should be noted that James Arthur Ray, one of the narrators of the movie version of The Secret, was found guilty of negligent homicide after three people died at one of his New Age retreats. Dan Harris and Lauren Effron, “James Ray Found Guilty of Negligent Homicide in Arizona Sweat Lodge Case,” ABC News, June 22, 2011, abcnews.go.com/US/james-ray-found-guilty-negligent-homicide-arizona-sweat/story?id=13908037.
36. Peter M. Gollwitzer et al., “When Intentions Go Public Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap?” Psychological Science 20, no. 5 (2009): 612–618.
37. Michael Shermer, “Science Without Borders,” New York Sun, September 14, 2005, www.nysun.com/arts/science-without-borders/19969/
38. Warren Jefferson, Reincarnation Beliefs of North American Indians: Soul Journey, Metamorphosis, and Near Death Experience (Summertown, TN: Native Voices Books, 2009).
39. Charles H. Kahn, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2001).
40. Derek Beres, “The Science of Reincarnation?” Big Think, December 4, 2012, bigthink.com/21st-century-spirituality/the-science-of-reincarnation.
41. Andy Campbell, “Boy, 5, Claims He Lived Past Life as Woman Who Died in Chicago Fire,” Huffington Post, February 19, 2015, www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/boy-reincarnated-woman-chicago-fire_n_6715128.html.
42. J. B. Tucker, Return to Life: Extraordinary Cases of Children Who Remember Past Lives (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013).
43. Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1980).
44. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, New York: Random House, 1996), 285. ISBN 978-0-394-53512-8.
45. Sam Harris, “This Must Be Heaven,” Sam Harris Blog, October 12, 2012, www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven.
46. Jonathan Edelmann and William Bernet, “Setting Criteria for Ideal Reincarnation Research,” Journal of Consciousness Studies 14, no. 12 (2007): 92.
47. Ian Stevenson, “Some of My Journeys in Medicine” (Flora Levy Lecture in the Humanities, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, 1989), med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/267/2015/11/some-of-my-journeys-in-medicine.pdf.
48. Other substances like alcohol and cannabis—and even deep meditation or a lack of sleep—can make people see things that aren’t really there, too.
49. K. L. R. Jansen, “Using Ketamine to Induce the Near-Death Experience: Mechanism of Action and Therapeutic Potential,” in Yearbook for Ethnomedicine and the Study of Consciousness (Jahrbuch furr Ethnomedizin und Bewubtseinsforschung), ed. Christian Rätsch and John Baker (Berlin: VWB Verlag, 1996).
50. J. V. Wallach, “Endogenous Hallucinogens as Ligands of the Trace Amine Receptors: A Possible Role in Sensory Perception,” Medical Hypotheses 72, no. 1 (2009): 91–94.
51. Rick J. Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule: A Doctor’s Revolutionary Research into the Biology of Near-Death and Mystical Experiences (Rochester, VT: Park Street, 2001).
52. S. A. Barker et al., “LC/MS/MS Analysis of the Endogenous Dimethyltryptamine Hallucinogens, Their Precursors, and Major Metabolites in Rat Pineal Gland Microdialysate,” Biomedical Chromatography 27, no. 12 (July 2013): 1690–1700.
53. Richard M. Eakin, “A Third Eye: A Century-Old Zoological Enigma Yields Its Secrets to Electron-Microscopist and Neurophysiologist,” American Scientist 58, no. 1 (1970): 73–79.
54. Gert-Jan Lokhorst, “Descartes and the Pineal Gland,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Summer 2016 edition), plato. stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/.
55. Tejal N. Mitchell et al., “Polymicrogyria and Absence of Pineal Gland Due to PAX6 Mutation,” Annals of Neurology 53, no. 5 (2003): 658–663.
56. R. H. F. Manske, “A Synthesis of the Methyltryptamines and Some Derivatives,” Canadian Journal of Research 5 no. 5 (1931): 592–600.
57. José Carlos Bouso et al., “Personality, Psychopathology, Life Attitudes and Neuropsychological Performance among Ritual Users of Ayahuasca: A Longitudinal Study,” PLoS One 7, no. 8 (2012): e42421.
58. Ian Cunnison, “Giraffe Hunting among the Humr Tribe,” Sudan Notes and Records 39 (1958).
59. F. X. Vollenweider, “Brain Mechanisms of Hallucinogens and Entactogens,” Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 3, no. 4 (2001): 265–279.
60. David Carrasco, City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2000).
61. José Carlos Bouso et al., “Personality, Psychopathology, Life Attitudes and Neuropsychological Performance among Ritual Users of Ayahuasca: A Longitudinal Study,” PLoS One 7, no. 8 (2012): e42421.
62. Daniel I. Brierley and Colin Davidson, “Developments in Harmine Pharmacology—Implications for Ayahuasca Use and Drug-Dependence Treatment,” Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry 39, no. 2 (2012): 263–272.
14
ALIEN INTERVENTION
“Our best telescopes have shown us that there are basically an unlimited number of planets in the universe. To think that Earth is the only one where life could have developed is just self-importance. But to think that intelligent life has traveled all the way here and is sneaking around observing us is also just self-importance.”
—Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut
Many people, religious and nonreligious alike, look for answers in alien intervention. This is partly because some humans maintain a religious urge to believe in some governing or controlling force, but there are a number of factors that come into play, including the fact that alien life itself is entirely possible and—I would argue—probable. Dr. Frank Drake would agree. His famous Drake equation, written in 1961, used data on average star formation and planet-to-star ratios to estimate that there are between 1,000 and 100,000 intelligent alien civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone.1 That number varies depending on the calculations and many scientists have their own guesses, but it’s certainly possible that alien life exists elsewhere—and we are actively searching for it. In fact, Ellen Stofan, chief scientist for NASA, said during a 2015 panel discussion that we will likely discover “strong indications” of extraterrestrial life within 10 years and “definite evidence” within 20 or 30 years.2
The possibility (and arguable probability) of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations can lead some people on a slippery slope of reasoning and incorrect conclusions. Those people think, “Alien beings must exist, and they could be infinitely more advanced technologically, so why wouldn’t they intervene in earthly affairs?” There are many reasonable answers to that question, but the primary flaw in this line of thinking is its reliance on numerous assumpti
ons. Firstly, we don’t know intelligent aliens exist yet. We suspect it, and it would make sense, but we have yet to prove they are out there despite our best efforts. There are some pieces of evidence that could point in the direction of intelligent alien life, such as the Wow! Signal, a strong, 72-second radio signal detected once in 1977,3 but even that could potentially have emanated from a pair of comets that were in the right area of the sky at that time.4 This lack of real proof is often referred to as Fermi’s paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, which describes the apparent contradiction between the estimates regarding high numbers of communicative ETs, provided by Drake and others, and our lack of hard evidence pointing to their existence.5 Robert H. Gray, author of The Elusive Wow: Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, has criticized Fermi’s paradox, calling it a “myth” that has “inhibited the search for E.T.”
“[T]he suggestion that we should not look for intelligent life elsewhere because we don’t see aliens here is simply silly,” wrote Gray, who has searched for radio signals from other worlds at observatories including the Very Large Array.6 “Our searches typically ‘see’ a spot on the sky no bigger than the Moon at any moment, which is only a tiny fraction of the sky. If we want to find something interesting in our era, we might need to look harder.”
The second assumption often made by those who posit the existence of alien visitors to Earth is that these so far undiscovered aliens are advanced enough to reach us and have a desire to do so. Because we haven’t discovered alien life, we can’t make claims about its technological development or intentions. A lot of people (especially those who are heavily influenced by fictional accounts) have this vision of extraterrestrials as incredibly advanced super-beings capable of traversing the cosmos with ease, but we can’t even say what materials make up their bodies or what they breathe, let alone what stages of tool development they’ve gone through or what types of machines they can build.
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