Near-Death Experiences and Emergent Dualism

Since the Enlightenment, reductionism has been an important part of the development of science and civilization. The process of abstracting features of the world and reducing them to their most basic components has greatly increased our grasp of the physical and chemical rules that govern physical reality at all levels. However, central aspects of reductionism have been challenged with the growing literature on religious/spiritual experiences after near-death experiences (NDEs) that challenge standard reductionistic models of the brain. In this paper, an alternative model of emergent dualism is proposed for examining NDEs and the mind.