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And yet it has been shown unequivocally that damage to the brain has a direct effect on functions involving thought.
As I said, damage to the brain has been shown to have a direct effect on consciousness. I find it unreasonable to expect that the ultimate damage - the brain shutting down, then decaying to dust - would result in anything other than complete loss of mental processes. When a severely brain-damaged person dies, is functionality somehow mystically restored to live forever in perfect awareness?
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"Despite zillions of us slaving away at the subject, we still don't know squat about how the brain works" - Dr. Robert Sapolsky
"Nobody understands how decisions are made or how imagination is set free. What consciousness consists of, or how it should be defined, is equally puzzling. Despite the marvelous successes of neuroscience in the past century, we seem as far from understanding cognitive processes as were a century ago" - Sir John Maddox
One must locate human consciousness/awareness before it can be said brain damage has a direct affect on. The puzzle in the mind brain interface is not in the recording of and bio-chemical storage of incoming sensory data. That's brain work. The puzzle is in the replay, there is no hint in the brain of how you hear or see or what you have heard or seen. There is nosound in your brain. Put a stethoscope to your head and all you will hear is the gurgle of blood rushing through the veins. No voices, no music but you hear voices and you hear music. But where is unknown. The identical biochemical reaction that in one part of the brain that store inputs related tothe sounds we hear in another location record the sights we see. But its all chemistry and even more mind bending its all the SAME chemistry. Obviously thats how we percieve the chemistry. The mystery is the the location of that perception. Maybe an NDE or brain damge is similar too smashing the reciever the radio waves are still there. Then again, maybe not!
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Do near-death experiences indicate that there really is something beyond this life? Or are they simply the result of oxygen starvation that is suddenly reversed? I don't claim to know anything about it, but barring any testable evidence I don't believe anything, one way or the other.
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I prefer to ponder the possibilities. From the burial of Abraham, the story of Er to the peer reviewd medical journal Lancet which in 2001 published the "never proven concept that consciousness and memories are located in the brain should be discussed"
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...100-8/fulltext . (you can find the full text on other websites but I fear if I linked to them I would be accused of being ignorant, religious or new age by crusaders.)
Oh almost forgot. Sir Roger Penrose has some pretty kewl theories on youtube concerning the quantum nature of consciousness. Though he has his critics Sir Roger Penrose is no slouch, the guy is a real genius.