Uma análise crítica das explicações fisicalistas para as experiências de quase-morte

Abstract

Near-death experiences have aroused growing scientific and philosophical interest, prompting numerous attempts at an explanation. Physicalist hypotheses of a psychological, neurophysiological, biochemical, and evolutionary nature have been proposed. An accurate analysis of these hypotheses is therefore required. To this end, the present study aimed to investigate the adequacy of these hypotheses, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses to determine whether they fit the available data. The methodology consisted of a literature review encompassing the primary physicalist hypotheses and their corresponding critiques, alongside the application of ‘inference to the best explanation’ to evaluate criteria such as power, consistency, fecundity, and simplicity, in order to identify the best physicalist explanation for NDEs. The analyzed hypotheses suffer from the flaw of maximizing similarities while minimizing dissimilarity, thereby confusing alleged similitude with identity of cause. However, the analysis of empirical data and evidence revealed no ‘differential cause’ (Lipton, 2004). The necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of NDEs present a major obstacle to physicalist hypotheses, which exhibit limited predictive power, as well as problems regarding testability, falsifiability, and weak inductive conclusions. Consequently, the findings indicate that current hypotheses fail to satisfactorily fulfill the criteria of power and consistency, displaying significant explanatory gaps and a lack of explanatory virtue. The studied hypotheses not only fail in their phenomenological and empirical descriptions, but also run into barriers imposed by the ‘ontological singularity’ of consciousness, the ‘explanatory coverage challenge’, and the ‘distinctive quality argument’. Such constructs set clear limits for physicalist hypotheses. The Liptonian framework of fact and foil demonstrates that explaining NDEs requires accounting for: (1) why experiences with a 'distinctive quality' occur under extreme neurophysiological conditions (anoxia, cardiac arrest); (2) why, under the very same conditions, disorganized experiences, lowered consciousness, and mental confusion occur; (3) why there is any experience at all—whether organized or disorganized—rather than amnesia; and (4) why the same lucid and transformative experience occurs under neurophysiological, psychological, and existential circumstances that are fundamentally distinct (outside of anoxia and cardiac arrest).