Despite Christof Koch’s claims at Scientific American, says neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, NDEs are radically different from any mental experience caused by brain impairment. And that’s not all:
After amassing an extraordinary body of data about the brain over the past two centuries, we still have no clue as to how three pounds of brain meat gives rise to the mind. The Hard Problem of the mind-brain relationship—the problem of explaining mental phenomena as wholly the consequence of the brain—remains completely unsolved, despite the fact that mental phenomena are the salient characteristics of consciousness.
It’s sobering to note that neuroscience has utterly failed to explain how the brain and mind relate. It is as if cosmology had failed to tell us anything meaningful about the universe; or medical science failed to tell us anything about health and disease; or geology failed to tell us anything about rocks. Neuroscience has told us nothing— nothing—about how the brain gives rise to the mind. The Hard Problem, after two centuries of neuroscience and a vast trove of data, remains utterly unsolved.
Michael Egnor, “Neuroscience can’t dismiss near-death experiences” at Mind Matters News
See also:
Do near-death experiences defy science? NDEs do not defy science. They sometimes challenge human senses, which are based on our biology. For example, if the human eye’s usual limitations were not a factor, previously unknown colors—which we KNOW from science to exist—might be perceived.
and
Why medical scientists take near-death experiences seriously now. Today, we know much more about what happens to people when they die—and what we are learning does not support materialism. Near-death experiences are generally seen as real, even among hardcore skeptics and research focuses on how to account for them.