Sebastian Junger

They do this with fighter pilots.

Well, you're near death because blood's not getting to your breast.

Absolutely.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

But the argument for—you're absolutely right, and I never thought of it that way.

But the argument by the scientists, the rationalists, is, look, we can reproduce all of this in the lab.

Right, right.

Well, another thing they can do is stimulate the brain during brain surgery, and they do that to make sure that they're not scooping out tumor, not your piano lessons or whatever, right?

And one of the things they can do is they stimulate certain parts of the brain.

They can give people a sensation that they're floating or…

or that they, oh my God, my grandfather, you know, whatever.

They can do weird shit with the brain with basically a toothpick and a bone saw, right?

And so at any rate, just suffice it to say there's the sort of slightly mystical argument of this is proof of an afterlife, and then there's the sort of rationalist argument, no, no, no, we understand the physiology of all this.

And so there was a guy in, I think it was Estonia, an older guy who fell and hit his head, he had a hematoma,

They put electrodes on his scalp to see what the brain activity was because he was having seizures.

Other stuff happened to him that the family said, you know, he doesn't have a chance of recuperating.

You basically pull the plug, let him die.

He had the –

The electrodes on his brain monitoring brain activity before the decision to pull the plug.