Summary: Interview with esteemed Berkeley philosopher and consciousness researcher Dr. John Searle examines the state of academic consciousness research. Alex Tsakiris: What we’ve been exploring is some of the evidence suggesting that consciousness may not be purely biological. We really started with parapsychology and folks like Rupert Sheldrake from Cambridge and Dean Radin who used to be at Bell Labs and is at IONS. But put all that aside because the real kicker is near-death experience science. Here are these doctors, in hospital, carefully controlled experiments over and over again, and the brain you’re talking about, Dr. Searle, is gone. It’s non-functioning; it isn’t there; and yet some kind of conscious experience that’s able to see and recall what’s going on continues. That evidence is pretty overwhelming at this point. What do you do with that? How does that fit into your model? Dr. John Searle: I don’t know. The stuff that I know about this tends to be rather anecdotal. Now maybe there is some really systematic, large-scale study of near-death experience that shows you can have consciousness without a brain but I don’t know of any such study. What I’ve heard is largely anecdotal. The mistake that people tend to make is they think, look, either these people are lying or there’s a miracle. Of course, both of those are probably wrong. People are perfectly sincere who report near-death experiences but it doesn’t follow that you can have consciousness completely separated from the brain; that this miracle is actually taking place. I’d have to know a whole lot more about it and see more systematic studies, as I said. The accounts that I’ve heard tend to be anecdotal. They tell a story about a guy who has had some unusual experiences. Alex Tsakiris: There is actually a lot of published work on this. The best compilation is probably The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences edited by Jan Holden at the University of North Texas and Bruce Greyson at the University of Virginia, who is very well-known in this area. Dr. John Searle: I don’t know enough about this stuff to have an intelligent opinion. Of course, it might turn out that 100 years from now we’ll have this conversation in heaven or in my case more likely the other place. The idea that you have to have a brain in order to be conscious, that’s a kind of silly idea people had back in the 21st Century. It might turn out that way; I don’t think it will. ---------- On today's episode I have an interview with Dr. John Searle. Now, before we get to the interview I want to tee up a question for you. As you know, I usually do this at the end of the show, but since the question relates to the quote you just heard, and since the question relates to something else I want to talk about I'm going throw it out there now -- How do you explain Dr. John Searle's willful ignorance of near-death experience science? Moreover, why is he so clueless about parapsychology? And most importantly, why does he think it’s ok to summarily dismiss all evidence pointing to any model of consciousness other than his hopelessly obsolete mind=brain clunker. Let’s consider near-death experience science since it's the most dramatic example of science that delivers an evidence-based kill-shot to the mind=brain carcass. How can a highly acclaimed, internationally renown expert on consciousness, who gives TED talks and is invited to scholarly symposiums on consciousness, how can that guy be less informed about the published peer-reviewed literature than your average Oprah Winfrey fan? It's not like he doesn't understand what's at stake. As you'll hear, he agrees the survival of consciousness question is central to all other scientific assumptions about consciousness. So why is Dr. Searle shamelessly, unapologeticly ignorant of this science? Well, that's the other thing I wanted to talk about before we get to this interview -- science bullies. Back in March of 2013,
