Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized. These technologies are generally new
but also include older technologies finding new applications. Emerging
technologies are often perceived as capable of changing the status quo.
Emerging technologies are characterized by radical novelty (in
application even if not in origins), relatively fast growth, coherence,
prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, an
emerging technology can be defined as "a radically novel and relatively
fast growing technology characterised by a certain degree of coherence
persisting over time and with the potential to exert a considerable
impact on the socio-economic domain(s) which is observed in terms of the
composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interactions among
those, along with the associated knowledge production processes. Its
most prominent impact, however, lies in the future and so in the
emergence phase is still somewhat uncertain and ambiguous."
New technological fields may result from the technological convergence
of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence brings
previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony
features), data (and productivity applications) and video together so
that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new
efficiencies.
Emerging technologies are those technical innovations which represent progressive developments within a field for competitive advantage;
converging technologies represent previously distinct fields which are
in some way moving towards stronger inter-connection and similar goals.
However, the opinion on the degree of the impact, status and economic
viability of several emerging and converging technologies varies.
In the history of technology, emerging technologies are contemporary advances and innovation in various fields of technology.
Over centuries innovative methods and new technologies are
developed and opened up. Some of these technologies are due to
theoretical research, and others from commercial research and development.
Technological growth includes incremental developments and disruptive technologies. An example of the former was the gradual roll-out of DVD (digital video disc) as a development intended to follow on from the previous optical technology compact disc.
By contrast, disruptive technologies are those where a new method
replaces the previous technology and makes it redundant, for example,
the replacement of horse-drawn carriages by automobiles and other
vehicles.
Many writers, including computer scientistBill Joy,
have identified clusters of technologies that they consider critical to
humanity's future. Joy warns that the technology could be used by
elites for good or evil.
They could use it as "good shepherds" for the rest of humanity or
decide everyone else is superfluous and push for mass extinction of
those made unnecessary by technology.
Advocates of the benefits of technological change typically see emerging and converging technologies as offering hope for the betterment of the human condition. Cyberphilosophers Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist argue in The Futurica Trilogy that while Man himself is basically constant throughout human history (genes change very slowly), all relevant change is rather a direct or indirect result of technological innovation (memes change very fast) since new ideas always emanate from technology use and not the other way around.
Man should consequently be regarded as history's main constant and
technology as its main variable. However, critics of the risks of
technological change, and even some advocates such as transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, warn that some of these technologies could pose dangers, perhaps even contribute to the extinction of humanity itself; i.e., some of them could involve existential risks.
Some analysts such as Martin Ford, author of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, argue that as information technology advances, robots and other forms of automation will ultimately result in significant unemployment as machines and software begin to match and exceed the capability of workers to perform most routine jobs.
As robotics and artificial intelligence develop further, even many
skilled jobs may be threatened. Technologies such as machine learning
may ultimately allow computers to do many knowledge-based jobs that
require significant education. This may result in substantial
unemployment at all skill levels, stagnant or falling wages for most
workers, and increased concentration of income and wealth as the owners
of capital capture an ever-larger fraction of the economy. This in turn
could lead to depressed consumer spending and economic growth as the
bulk of the population lacks sufficient discretionary income to purchase
the products and services produced by the economy.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the sub intelligence exhibited by machines or software, and the branch of computer science
that develops machines and software with animal-like intelligence.
Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as "the study and
design of intelligent agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the study of making intelligent machines".
The central functions (or goals) of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, natural language processing (communication), perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. General intelligence (or "strong AI")
is still among the field's long-term goals. Currently, popular
approaches include deep learning, statistical methods, computational
intelligence and traditional symbolic AI. There is an enormous number of
tools used in AI, including versions of search and mathematical
optimization, logic, methods based on probability and economics, and
many others.
Combined with Internet technology, 3D printing would allow for
digital blueprints of virtually any material product to be sent
instantly to another person to be produced on the spot, making
purchasing a product online almost instantaneous.
Although this technology is still too crude to produce most
products, it is rapidly developing and created a controversy in 2013
around the issue of 3D printed firearms.
Gene therapy was first successfully demonstrated in late 1990/early 1991 for adenosine deaminase deficiency,
though the treatment was somatic – that is, did not affect the
patient's germ line and thus was not heritable. This led the way to
treatments for other genetic diseases and increased interest in germ line gene therapy – therapy affecting the gametes and descendants of patients.
Between September 1990 and January 2014, there were around 2,000 gene therapy trials conducted or approved.
A cancer vaccine is a vaccine that treats existing cancer or prevents the development of cancer in certain high-risk individuals. Vaccines that treat existing cancer are known as therapeutic cancer vaccines. There are currently no vaccines able to prevent cancer in general.
On April 14, 2009, The Dendreon Corporation announced that their Phase III clinical trial of Provenge, a cancer vaccine designed to treat prostate cancer, had demonstrated an increase in survival. It received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for use in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer patients on April 29, 2010. The approval of Provenge has stimulated interest in this type of therapy.
Cultured meat, also called in vitro meat, clean meat, cruelty-free meat, shmeat, and test-tube meat, is an animal-flesh product that has never been part of a living animal with exception of the fetal calf serum taken from a slaughtered cow. In the 21st century, several research projects have worked on in vitro meat in the laboratory. The first in vitro beefburger, created by a Dutch team, was eaten at a demonstration for the press in London in August 2013. There remain difficulties to be overcome before in vitro meat becomes commercially available.
Cultured meat is prohibitively expensive, but it is expected that the
cost could be reduced to compete with that of conventionally obtained
meat as technology improves. In vitro
meat is also an ethical issue. Some argue that it is less objectionable
than traditionally obtained meat because it doesn't involve killing and
reduces the risk of animal cruelty, while others disagree with eating
meat that has not developed naturally.
Nanotechnology (sometimes shortened to nanotech) is the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. The earliest widespread description of nanotechnologyreferred to the particular technological goal of precisely
manipulating atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale products,
also now referred to as molecular nanotechnology. A more generalized description of nanotechnology was subsequently established by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which defines nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers. This definition reflects the fact that quantum mechanical effects are important at this quantum-realm
scale, and so the definition shifted from a particular technological
goal to a research category inclusive of all types of research and
technologies that deal with the special properties of matter that occur
below the given size threshold.
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, and application of robots,
as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and
information processing. These technologies deal with automated machines
that can take the place of humans in dangerous environments or
manufacturing processes, or resemble humans in appearance, behavior,
and/or cognition. A good example of a robot that resembles humans is Sophia, a social humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics which was activated on April 19, 2015. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature contributing to the field of bio-inspired robotics.
Stem cell therapy is an intervention strategy that introduces new adult stem cells into damaged tissue in order to treat disease or injury. Many medical researchers believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering. The ability of stem cells to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations with variable degrees of differentiation capacities
offers significant potential for generation of tissues that can
potentially replace diseased and damaged areas in the body, with minimal
risk of rejection and side effects.
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells have raised
among other immunotherapies for cancer treatment, being implemented
against B-cell malignancies. Despite the promising outcomes of this
innovative technology, CAR-T cells are not exempt from limitations that
must yet to be overcome in order to provide reliable and more efficient
treatments against other types of cancer.
Distributed ledger or blockchain technology provides a transparent
and immutable list of transactions. A wide range of uses has been
proposed for where an open, decentralised database is required, ranging
from supply chains to cryptocurrencies.
Smart contracts
are self-executing transactions which occur when pre-defined conditions
are met. The aim is to provide security that is superior to traditional
contract law, and to reduce transaction costs and delays. The original
idea was conceived by Nick Szabo in 1994, but remained unrealised until the development of blockchains.
Development of emerging technologies
As
innovation drives economic growth, and large economic rewards come from
new inventions, a great deal of resources (funding and effort) go into
the development of emerging technologies. Some of the sources of these
resources are described below...
Applied research
is a form of systematic inquiry involving the practical application of
science. It accesses and uses some part of the research communities'
(the academia's) accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and
techniques, for a specific, often state-, business-, or client-driven
purpose.
Science policy
is the area of public policy which is concerned with the policies that
affect the conduct of the science and research enterprise, including the
funding of science, often in pursuance of other national policy goals
such as technological innovation to promote commercial product
development, weapons development, health care and environmental
monitoring.
Patents
Top 30 AI patent applicants in 2016
Patents
provide inventors with a limited period of time (minimum of 20 years,
but duration based on jurisdiction) of exclusive right in the making,
selling, use, leasing or otherwise of their novel technological
inventions. Artificial intelligence,
robotic inventions, new material, or blockchain platforms may be
patentable, the patent protecting the technological know-how used to
create these inventions. In 2019, WIPO reported that AI was the most prolific emerging technology in terms of number of patent applications and granted patents, the Internet of things
was estimated to be the largest in terms of market size. It was
followed, again in market size, by big data technologies, robotics, AI,
3D printing and the fifth generation of mobile services (5G).
Since AI emerged in the 1950s, 340000 AI-related patent applications
were filed by innovators and 1.6 million scientific papers have been
published by researchers, with the majority of all AI-related patent
filings published since 2013. Companies represent 26 out of the top 30
AI patent applicants, with universities or public research organizations
accounting for the remaining four.
DARPA was created in 1958 as the Advanced Research Projects
Agency (ARPA) by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Its purpose was to
formulate and execute research and development projects to expand the
frontiers of technology and science, with the aim to reach beyond
immediate military requirements.
Projects funded by DARPA have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as the Internet and Global Positioning System technology.
Technology competitions and awards
There
are awards that provide incentive to push the limits of technology
(generally synonymous with emerging technologies). Note that while some
of these awards reward achievement after-the-fact via analysis of the
merits of technological breakthroughs, others provide incentive via
competitions for awards offered for goals yet to be achieved.
The Orteig Prize was a $25,000 award offered in 1919 by French hotelier Raymond Orteig for the first nonstop flight between New York City and Paris. In 1927, underdog Charles Lindbergh won the prize in a modified single-engine Ryan aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. In total, nine teams spent $400,000 in pursuit of the Orteig Prize.
The XPRIZE series of awards, public competitions designed and managed by the non-profit organization called the X Prize Foundation,
are intended to encourage technological development that could benefit
mankind. The most high-profile XPRIZE to date was the $10,000,000 Ansari
XPRIZE relating to spacecraft development, which was awarded in 2004
for the development of SpaceShipOne.
The Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery
(ACM) to "an individual selected for contributions of a technical
nature made to the computing community." It is stipulated that the
contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the
computer field. The Turing Award is generally recognized as the highest
distinction in computer science, and in 2014 grew to $1,000,000.
In 2003, David Gobel seed-funded the Methuselah Mouse Prize
(Mprize) to encourage the development of new life extension therapies
in mice, which are genetically similar to humans. So far, three Mouse
Prizes have been awarded: one for breaking longevity records to Dr.
Andrzej Bartke of Southern Illinois University; one for late-onset rejuvenation strategies to Dr. Stephen Spindler of the University of California; and one to Dr. Z. Dave Sharp for his work with the pharmaceutical rapamycin.
Role of science fiction
Science fiction has often affected innovation and new technology - for example many rocketry pioneers were inspired by science fiction - and the documentary How William Shatner Changed the World gives a number of examples of imagined technologies being actualized.
The term bleeding edge has been used to refer to some new technologies, formed as an allusion to the similar terms "leading edge" and "cutting edge". It tends to imply even greater advancement, albeit at an increased risk because of the unreliability of the software or hardware.
The first documented example of this term being used dates to early
1983, when an unnamed banking executive was quoted to have used it in
reference to Storage Technology Corporation.
A deathbed conversion is the adoption of a particular religiousfaith shortly before dying. Making a conversion on one's deathbed
may reflect an immediate change of belief, a desire to formalize
longer-term beliefs, or a desire to complete a process of conversion
already underway. Claims of the deathbed conversion of famous or
influential figures have also been used in history as rhetorical devices.
Conversions at the point of death have a long history. The first recorded deathbed conversion appears in the Gospel of Luke where the good thief,
crucified beside Jesus, expresses belief in Christ. Jesus accepts his
conversion, saying "Today you shall be with Me in Paradise".
Perhaps the most momentous conversion in Western history was that of Constantine I, Roman Emperor and later proclaimed a Christian Saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. While his belief in Christianity occurred long before his death, it was only on his deathbed that he was baptised, in 337 by the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia. While traditional sources disagree as to why this happened so late, modern historiography concludes that Constantine chose religious tolerance as an instrument to bolster his reign. According to Bart Ehrman,
all Christians contemporary to Constantine got baptized on their
deathbed since they firmly believed that continuing to sin after baptism
ensures their eternal damnation. Ehrman sees no conflict between Constantine's Paganism and him being a Christian.
Notable deathbed conversions
Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill was baptized Catholic one day before his death in 1917.
Charles II of England
reigned in an Anglican nation at a time of strong religious conflict.
Though his sympathies were at least somewhat with the Roman Catholic
faith, he ruled as an Anglican, though he attempted to lessen the
persecution and legal penalties affecting non-Anglicans in England,
notably through the Royal Declaration of Indulgence. As he lay dying following a stroke, released of the political need, he was received into the Catholic Church.
Jean de La Fontaine
The most famous French fabulist published a revised edition of his greatest work, Contes, in 1692, the same year that he began to suffer a severe illness. Under such circumstances, Jean de La Fontaine turned to religion. A young priest, M. Poucet, tried to persuade him about the impropriety of the Contes,
and it is said that the destruction of a new play of some merit was
demanded and submitted to as a proof of repentance. La Fontaine received
the Viaticum, and the following years, he continued to write poems and fables. He died in 1695.
Sir Allan Napier MacNab
Sir Allan Napier MacNab, Canadian political leader, died 8 August 1862 in Hamilton, Ontario. His deathbed conversion to Catholicism caused a furor in the press in the following days. The Toronto Globe and the Hamilton Spectator expressed strong doubts about the conversion, and the Anglican rector of Christ Church in Hamilton declared that MacNab died a Protestant.
MacNab's Catholic baptism is recorded at St. Mary's Cathedral in
Hamilton, performed by John, Bishop of Hamilton, on 7 August 1862.
Lending credibility to this conversion, MacNab's second wife, who
predeceased him, was Catholic, and their two daughters were raised as
Catholics.
Charles Maurras
In the last days before his death, French author Charles Maurras readopted the Catholic faith of his childhood and received the last rites.
Author and wit Oscar Wilde converted to Catholicism during his final illness. Robert Ross
gave a clear and unambiguous account: 'When I went for the priest to
come to his death-bed he was quite conscious and raised his hand in
response to questions and satisfied the priest, Father Cuthbert Dunne of
the Passionists. It was the morning before he died and for about three
hours he understood what was going on (and knew I had come from the
South in response to a telegram) that he was given the last sacrament.
The Passionist house in Avenue Hoche, has a house journal which
contains a record, written by Dunne, of his having received Wilde into
full communion with the Church. While Wilde's conversion may have come
as a surprise, he had long maintained an interest in the Catholic
Church, having met with Pope Pius IX
in 1877 and describing the Roman Catholic Church as "for saints and
sinners alone – for respectable people, the Anglican Church will do".
However, how much of a believer in all the tenets of Catholicism Wilde
ever was is arguable: in particular, against Ross's insistence on the
truth of Catholicism: "No, Robbie, it isn't true." "My position is curious," Wilde epigrammatised, "I am not a Catholic: I am simply a violent Papist."
In his poem Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde wrote:
Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break
And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
May Lord Christ enter in?
John Wayne
American actor and filmmaker John Wayne, according to his son Patrick and his grandson Matthew Muñoz, who was a priest in the California Diocese of Orange, converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his death.
Muñoz stated that Wayne expressed a degree of regret about not becoming
a Catholic earlier in life, explaining "that was one of the sentiment
he expressed before he passed on," blaming "a busy life."
Alleged deathbed conversions
Charles Darwin
After Charles Darwin died, rumours spread that he had converted to Christianity on his deathbed. His children denied this occurred.
One famous example is Charles Darwin's deathbed conversion in which it was claimed by Lady Hope that Darwin said:
"How I wish I had not expressed my theory of evolution
as I have done." He went on to say that he would like her to gather a
congregation since he "would like to speak to them of Christ Jesus and
His salvation, being in a state where he was eagerly savoring the
heavenly anticipation of bliss."
Lady Hope's story was printed in the Boston Watchman Examiner. The story spread, and the claims were republished as late as October 1955 in the Reformation Review and in the Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland in February 1957.
Lady Hope's story is not supported by Darwin's children. Darwin's son Francis Darwin
accused her of lying, saying that "Lady Hope's account of my father's
views on religion is quite untrue. I have publicly accused her of
falsehood, but have not seen any reply." Darwin's daughter Henrietta Litchfield
also called the story a fabrication, saying "I was present at his
deathbed. Lady Hope was not present during his last illness, or any
illness. I believe he never even saw her, but in any case she had no
influence over him in any department of thought or belief. He never
recanted any of his scientific views, either then or earlier. We think
the story of his conversion was fabricated in the U.S.A. The whole story has no foundation whatever."
Doc Holliday
According to an obituary by the Glenwood Springs Ute Chief', Doc Holliday
had been baptized in the Catholic Church shortly before he died. This
was based on correspondence written between Holliday and his cousin, Sister Mary Melanie Holliday (a Catholic Nun), though no baptismal record has ever been found.
Edward VII
King Edward VII of the U.K.
is alleged by some to have converted to Roman Catholicism on his
deathbed, with other accounts alleging he converted secretly two months
before his death.
Wallace Stevens
The poet Wallace Stevens is said to have been baptized a Catholic during his last days suffering from stomach cancer. This account is disputed, particularly by Stevens's daughter, Holly, and critic, Helen Vendler, who, in a letter to James Wm. Chichetto, thought Fr. Arthur Hanley was "forgetful" since "he was interviewed twenty years after Stevens' death."
Voltaire
The accounts of Voltaire's
death have been numerous and varying, and it has not been possible to
establish the details of what precisely occurred. His enemies related
that he repented and accepted the last rites from a Catholic priest, or
that he died in agony of body and soul, while his adherents told of his
defiance to his last breath.
George Washington
After U.S. President George Washington
died in 1799, rumors spread among his slaves that he was baptized
Catholic on his deathbed. This story was orally passed down in
African-American communities into the 20th Century, as well as among
early Maryland Jesuits. The Denver Register
printed two pieces, in 1952 and 1957, discussing the possibility of
this rumor, including the fact that an official inventory of
Washington's personal belongings at the time of his death included 1
Likeness of Virgin Mary" (an item unlikely to have been held by a
Protestant).
However, no definitive evidence has ever been found of a conversion,
nor did any testimony from those close to Washington, including the
Catholic Archbishop John Carroll, ever mention this occurring.
In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is the observed exponential nature of the rate of technological change
in recent history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in
the future and may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social
and cultural change.
Early observations
In 1910, during the town planning conference of London, Daniel Burnham
noted, "But it is not merely in the number of facts or sorts of
knowledge that progress lies: it is still more in the geometric ratio of
sophistication, in the geometric widening of the sphere of knowledge, which every year is taking in a larger percentage of people as time goes on."
And later on, "It is the argument with which I began, that a mighty
change having come about in fifty years, and our pace of development
having immensely accelerated, our sons and grandsons are going to demand
and get results that would stagger us."
In 1938, Buckminster Fuller introduced the word ephemeralization to describe the trends of "doing more with less" in chemistry, health and other areas of industrial development.
In 1946, Fuller published a chart of the discoveries of the chemical
elements over time to highlight the development of accelerating
acceleration in human knowledge acquisition.
One
conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology
and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of
approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond
which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.
Moravec's Mind Children
In a series of published articles from 1974 to 1979, and then in his 1988 book Mind Children, computer scientist and futurist Hans Moravec generalizes Moore's law to make predictions about the future of artificial life. Moore's law describes an exponential growth
pattern in the complexity of integrated semiconductor circuits. Moravec
extends this to include technologies from long before the integrated
circuit to future forms of technology. Moravec outlines a timeline and a
scenario in which robots will evolve into a new series of artificial species, starting around 2030–2040.
In Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, published in 1998, Moravec further considers the implications of evolving robot intelligence, generalizing Moore's law to technologies predating the integrated circuit,
and also plotting the exponentially increasing computational power of
the brains of animals in evolutionary history. Extrapolating these
trends, he speculates about a coming "mind fire" of rapidly expanding superintelligence similar to the explosion of intelligence predicted by Vinge.
In his TV series Connections (1978)—and sequels Connections² (1994) and Connections³ (1997)—James Burke
explores an "Alternative View of Change" (the subtitle of the series)
that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical
progress. Burke contends that one cannot consider the development of
any particular piece of the modern world in isolation. Rather, the
entire gestalt of the modern world is the result of a web of
interconnected events, each one consisting of a person or group acting
for reasons of their own motivations (e.g., profit, curiosity,
religious) with no concept of the final, modern result to which the
actions of either them or their contemporaries would lead. The interplay
of the results of these isolated events is what drives history and
innovation, and is also the main focus of the series and its sequels.
Burke also explores three corollaries to his initial thesis. The
first is that, if history is driven by individuals who act only on what
they know at the time, and not because of any idea as to where their
actions will eventually lead, then predicting the future course of
technological progress is merely conjecture. Therefore, if we are
astonished by the connections Burke is able to weave among past events,
then we will be equally surprised to what the events of today eventually
will lead, especially events we were not even aware of at the time.
The second and third corollaries are explored most in the
introductory and concluding episodes, and they represent the downside of
an interconnected history. If history progresses because of the
synergistic interaction of past events and innovations, then as history
does progress, the number of these events and innovations increases.
This increase in possible connections causes the process of innovation
to not only continue, but to accelerate. Burke poses the question of
what happens when this rate of innovation, or more importantly change
itself, becomes too much for the average person to handle, and what this
means for individual power, liberty, and privacy.
Gerald Hawkins' Mindsteps
In his book Mindsteps to the Cosmos (HarperCollins, August 1983), Gerald S. Hawkins elucidated his notion of mindsteps, dramatic and irreversible changes to paradigms
or world views. He identified five distinct mindsteps in human history,
and the technology that accompanied these "new world views": the
invention of imagery, writing, mathematics, printing, the telescope,
rocket, radio, TV, computer... "Each one takes the collective mind
closer to reality, one stage further along in its understanding of the
relation of humans to the cosmos." He noted: "The waiting period between
the mindsteps is getting shorter. One can't help noticing the
acceleration." Hawkins' empirical 'mindstep equation' quantified this,
and gave dates for future mindsteps. The date of the next mindstep (5;
the series begins at 0) is given as 2021, with two further, successively
closer mindsteps in 2045 and 2051, until the limit of the series in
2053. His speculations ventured beyond the technological:
The mindsteps... appear to have
certain things in common—a new and unfolding human perspective, related
inventions in the area of memes and communications, and a long
formulative waiting period before the next mindstep comes along. None of
the mindsteps can be said to have been truly anticipated, and most were
resisted at the early stages. In looking to the future we may equally
be caught unawares. We may have to grapple with the presently
inconceivable, with mind-stretching discoveries and concepts.
Mass use of inventions: Years until use by a quarter of US population
Vinge's exponentially accelerating change
The mathematician Vernor Vinge popularized his ideas about exponentially accelerating technological change in the science fiction novel Marooned in Realtime
(1986), set in a world of rapidly accelerating progress leading to the
emergence of more and more sophisticated technologies separated by
shorter and shorter time intervals, until a point beyond human
comprehension is reached. His subsequent Hugo award-winning novel A Fire Upon the Deep (1992) starts with an imaginative description of the evolution of a superintelligence passing through exponentially accelerating developmental stages ending in a transcendent, almost omnipotent power unfathomable by mere humans. His already mentioned influential 1993 paper on the technological singularity compactly summarizes the basic ideas.
Kurzweil's The Law of Accelerating Returns
In his 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil
proposed "The Law of Accelerating Returns", according to which the rate
of change in a wide variety of evolutionary systems (including but not
limited to the growth of technologies) tends to increase exponentially. He gave further focus to this issue in a 2001 essay entitled "The Law of Accelerating Returns". In it, Kurzweil, after Moravec, argued for extending Moore's Law to describe exponential growth of diverse forms of technological
progress. Whenever a technology approaches some kind of a barrier,
according to Kurzweil, a new technology will be invented to allow us to
cross that barrier. He cites numerous past examples of this to
substantiate his assertions. He predicts that such paradigm shifts
have and will continue to become increasingly common, leading to
"technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in
the fabric of human history". He believes the Law of Accelerating
Returns implies that a technological singularity will occur before the end of the 21st century, around 2045. The essay begins:
An analysis of the history of
technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to
the common-sense 'intuitive linear' view. So we won't experience 100
years of progress in the 21st century—it will be more like 20,000 years
of progress (at today's rate). The 'returns,' such as chip speed and
cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even
exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few
decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading
to the Singularity—technological change so rapid and profound it
represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications
include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence,
immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence
that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.
Moore's Law expanded to other technologies.
An updated version of Moore's Law over 120 years (based on Kurzweil'sgraph). The seven most recent data points are all Nvidia GPUs.
The Law of Accelerating Returns has in many ways altered public perception of Moore's law. It is a common (but mistaken) belief that Moore's law makes predictions regarding all forms of technology, when really it only concerns semiconductor circuits. Many futurists still use the term "Moore's law" to describe ideas like those put forth by Moravec, Kurzweil and others.
According to Kurzweil, since the beginning of evolution,
more complex life forms have been evolving exponentially faster, with
shorter and shorter intervals between the emergence of radically new
life forms, such as human beings, who have the capacity to engineer
(i.e. intentionally design with efficiency) a new trait which replaces
relatively blind evolutionary mechanisms of selection for efficiency. By
extension, the rate of technical progress amongst humans has also been
exponentially increasing, as we discover more effective ways to do
things, we also discover more effective ways to learn, i.e. language, numbers, written language, philosophy, scientific method,
instruments of observation, tallying devices, mechanical calculators,
computers, each of these major advances in our ability to account for
information occur increasingly close together. Already within the past
sixty years, life in the industrialized world has changed almost beyond
recognition except for living memories from the first half of the 20th
century. This pattern will culminate in unimaginable technological
progress in the 21st century, leading to a singularity. Kurzweil
elaborates on his views in his books The Age of Spiritual Machines and The Singularity Is Near.
Limits of accelerating change
Applying
a scientific approach, we will notice in natural science that it is
typical that processes characterized by exponential acceleration in
their initial stages go into the saturation phase. This clearly makes it
possible to realize that if an increase with acceleration is observed
over a certain period of time, this does not mean an endless
continuation of this process. On the contrary, in many cases this means
an early exit to the plateau of speed. The processes occurring in
natural science allow us to suggest that the observed picture of
accelerating scientific and technological progress, after some time (in
physical processes, as a rule, is short) will be replaced by a slowdown
and a complete stop? Despite the possible termination / attenuation of
the acceleration of the progress of science and technology in the
foreseeable future, progress itself, and as a result, social
transformations, will not stop or even slow down - it will continue with
the achieved (possibly huge) speed, which has become constant.
Accelerating change may not be restricted to the Anthropocene Epoch, but a general and predictable developmental feature of the universe.
The physical processes that generate an acceleration such as Moore's
law are positive feedback loops giving rise to exponential or
superexponential technological change.
These dynamics lead to increasingly efficient and dense configurations
of Space, Time, Energy, and Matter (STEM efficiency and density, or STEM
"compression").
At the physical limit, this developmental process of accelerating
change leads to black hole density organizations, a conclusion also
reached by studies of the ultimate physical limits of computation in the
universe.
Applying this vision to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
leads to the idea that advanced intelligent life reconfigures itself
into a black hole. Such advanced life forms would be interested in inner
space, rather than outer space and interstellar expansion. They would thus in some way transcend reality, not be observable and it would be a solution to Fermi's paradox called the "transcension hypothesis".
Another solution is that the black holes we observe could actually be
interpreted as intelligent super-civilizations feeding on stars, or
"stellivores".
This dynamics of evolution and development is an invitation to study the universe itself as evolving, developing. If the universe is a kind of superorganism, it may possibly tend to reproduce, naturally or artificially, with intelligent life playing a role.
Other estimates
Dramatic
changes in the rate of economic growth have occurred in the past
because of some technological advancement. Based on population growth,
the economy doubled every 250,000 years from the Paleolithic era until the Neolithic Revolution.
The new agricultural economy doubled every 900 years, a remarkable
increase. In the current era, beginning with the Industrial Revolution,
the world's economic output doubles every fifteen years, sixty times
faster than during the agricultural era. If the rise of superhuman
intelligence causes a similar revolution, argues Robin Hanson, then one
would expect the economy to double at least quarterly and possibly on a
weekly basis.
In his 1981 book Critical Path, futurist and inventor R. Buckminster Fuller estimated
that if we took all the knowledge that mankind had accumulated and
transmitted by the year One CE as equal to one unit of information, it
probably took about 1500 years (or until the sixteenth century) for that
amount of knowledge to double. The next doubling of knowledge from two
to four 'knowledge units' took only 250 years, until about 1750 CE. By
1900, one hundred and fifty years later, knowledge had doubled again to 8
units. The observed speed at which information doubled was getting
faster and faster.
In modern times, exponential knowledge progressions therefore change at
an ever-increasing rate. Depending on the progression, this tends to
lead toward explosive growth at some point. A simple exponential curve
that represents this accelerating change phenomenon could be modeled by a
doubling function. This fast rate of knowledge doubling leads up to the basic proposed hypothesis of the technological singularity: the rate at which technology progression surpasses human biological evolution.
Criticisms
Both Theodore Modis
and Jonathan Huebner have argued—each from different perspectives—that
the rate of technological innovation has not only ceased to rise, but is
actually now declining.
Gallery
Kurzweil
created the following graphs to illustrate his beliefs concerning and
his justification for his Law of Accelerating Returns.
A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound personal
experience associated with death or impending death which researchers
claim share similar characteristics. When positive, such experiences may
encompass a variety of sensations including detachment from the body,
feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience
of absolute dissolution, and the presence of a light. When negative,
such experiences may include sensations of anguish and distress.
Explanations for NDEs vary from scientific to religious. Neuroscience research hypothesizes that an NDE is a subjective phenomenon resulting from "disturbed bodily multisensory integration" that occurs during life-threatening events. Some transcendental and religious beliefs about an afterlife include descriptions similar to NDEs.
In the U.S., an estimated 9 million people have reported an NDE,
according to a 2011 study in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Most of these near-death experiences result from serious injury that
affects the body or brain.
The equivalent French term expérience de mort imminente ("experience of imminent death") was proposed by French psychologist and epistemologist Victor Egger as a result of discussions in the 1890s among philosophers and psychologists concerning climbers' stories of the panoramic life review during falls.
In 1892 a series of subjective observations by workers falling from
scaffolds, war soldiers who suffered injuries, climbers who had fallen
from heights or other individuals who had come close to death (near
drownings, accidents) was reported by Albert Heim. This was also the first time the phenomenon was described as clinical syndrome. In 1968 Celia Green published an analysis of 400 first-hand accounts of out-of-body experiences. This represented the first attempt to provide a taxonomy of such experiences, viewed simply as anomalous perceptual experiences, or hallucinations. In 1969, Swiss-American psychiatrist and pioneer in near-death studies Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published her book On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families. These experiences were also popularized by the work of psychiatristRaymond Moody,
who in 1975 coined the term "near-death experience" as an umbrella term
for the different elements (out of body experiences, the "panoramic
life review", the Light, the tunnel, or the border). The term "near-death experience" had already been used by John C. Lilly in 1972.
Characteristics
Common elements
Researchers have identified the common elements that define near-death experiences. Bruce Greyson
argues that the general features of the experience include impressions
of being outside one's physical body, visions of deceased relatives and
religious figures, and transcendence of egotic and spatiotemporal
boundaries. Many common elements have been reported, although the person's interpretation of these events often corresponds with the cultural, philosophical, or religious beliefs of the person experiencing it. For example, in the US, where 46% of the population believes in guardian angels,
they will often be identified as angels or deceased loved ones (or will
be unidentified), while Hindus will often identify them as messengers
of the god of death.
Common traits that have been reported by NDErs are as follows:
A sense/awareness of being dead.
A sense of peace, well-being, and painlessness. Positive emotions. A sense of removal from the world.
An out-of-body experience.
A perception of one's body from an outside position, sometimes
observing medical professionals performing resuscitation efforts.
A "tunnel experience" or entering a darkness. A sense of moving up, or through, a passageway or staircase.
A rapid movement toward and/or sudden immersion in a powerful light
(or "Being of Light") which communicates telepathically with the person.
Encountering "Beings of Light", "Beings dressed in white", or
similar. Also, the possibility of being reunited with deceased loved
ones.
Experiencing euphoric environments.
Receiving a life review, commonly referred to as "seeing one's life flash before one's eyes".
Approaching a border or a decision by oneself or others to return to one's body, often accompanied by a reluctance to return.
Suddenly finding oneself back inside one's body.
Connection to the cultural beliefs held by the individual, which
seem to dictate some of the phenomena experienced in the NDE, but more
so affects the later interpretation thereof.
Meeting the dead and hallucinating ghosts in an after-life environment.
It is also important not to confuse an out-of-body experience
(OBE) with a near-death experience. An OBE is a part of an NDE, but
most importantly, can happen in other instances than when a person is
about to die, such as fainting, deep sleep, and alcohol or drug use, where there are many cases of people claiming to have lived through an OBE, seeing the world outside of their physical body.
Stages
A 1975 study conducted by psychiatrist Raymond Moody, MD, PhD, on around 150 patients who all claimed to have witnessed an NDE stated that such an experience has nine steps.
The exact description of these nine steps, through Dr Moody's study, are:
Sudden peace and relief from pain.
Perception of a relaxing sound or other-worldly music.
Consciousness or spirit ascending above the person's body and
remotely viewing the attempts at resuscitation from the ceiling
(autoscopy).
The person's spirit leaving the earthly realm and ascending rapidly through a tunnel of light in a universe of darkness.
Arriving at a brilliant "heavenly place."
Being met by "people of the light," who are usually deceased friends and family, in a joyous reunion.
Meeting with a deity that is often perceived as their religious
culture would have perceived them, or as an intense mass emitting pure
love and light.
In the presence of the deity, the person undergoes an instantaneous
life review and understands how all the good and bad they have done has
affected them and others.
The person returns to their earthly body and life, because either
they are told it is not their time to die, or they are given a choice
and they return for the benefit of their family and loved ones.
Moody also explained how not every NDE will have each and every one
of these steps, and how it could be different for every single
experience. Due to the potential confusion or shock attributed to those
who experience near-death experiences, it is important to treat them in a
calm and understanding way right after their return from the
After-Life.
Dr Moody describes the correct approach to an NDE patient is to "Ask, Listen, Validate, Educate, and Refer"
Kenneth Ring (1980) subdivided the NDE on a five-stage continuum, using Moody's nine step experiment as inspiration. The subdivisions were:
Peace
Body separation
Entering darkness
Seeing the light
Entering another realm of existence, through the light
Entering darkness, seeing the light
There is also a final stage in NDEs, which is the person in question returning to their life on Earth.
Charlotte Martial, a neuropsychologist from the University of Liège
and the University Hospital of Liège who led a team that investigated
154 NDE cases, concluded that there is not a fixed sequence of events.
Yvonne Kason MD classified near-death experiences into three types: the
"Out-of-Body" type, the "Mystical" or "White-Light" type, and the
"Distressing" type.
Clinical circumstances
Kenneth
Ring argues that NDEs experienced following attempted suicides are
statistically no more unpleasant than NDEs resulting from other
situations.
In one series of NDEs, 22% occurred during general anesthesia.
Bruce Greyson declares in his study that overall NDEs have a
lack of precision in diagnosis, so Dr. Greyson ventured in the study of
common effects, mechanisms, sensations and reactions revealed through
NDE's survivors by creating a questionnaire composed of 80
characteristics linked to NDE. He performed many studies averaging 70
responders per study. Nevertheless, he believed that his preliminary
form wasn't precise enough, so Dr. Greyson went on to extend his
research through tests and analysis collecting essential data that
resulted in him coming up with an exemplary scale for many researchers
to use for their studies that goes as follows:
Bruce Greyson's Composition of Final NDE Scale
Component and Question
Weighted Response
Did time seem to speed up?
2 = Everything seemed to be happening all at once
1 = Time seemed to go faster than usual
0= Neither
Were your thoughts speeded up?
2 = Incredibly fast
1 = Faster than usual
0= Neither
Did scenes from your past come back to you?
2 = Past flashed before me, out of my control
1 = Remembered many past events
0= Neither
Did you suddenly seem to understand everything?
2 = About the universe
1 = About myself or others
0= Neither
Did you have a feeling of peace or pleasantness?
2 = Incredible peace or pleasantness
1 = Relief or calmness
0= Neither
Did you have a feeling of joy?
2 = Incredible joy
1 = Happiness
0= Neither
Did you feel a sense of harmony or unity with the universe?
2 = United, one with the world
1 = No longer in conflict with nature
0= Neither
Did you see or feel surrounded by a brilliant light?
2 = Light clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin
1 = Unusually bright light
0= Neither
Were your senses more vivid than usual?
2 = Incredibly more so
1 = More so than usual
0= Neither
Did you seem to be aware of things going on elsewhere, as if by ESP?
2 = Yes, and facts later corroborated
1 = Yes, but facts not yet corroborated
0= Neither
Did scenes from the future come to you?
2 = From the world's future
1 = From personal future
0= Neither
Did you feel separated from your physical body?
2 = Clearly left the body and existed outside it
1 = Lost awareness of the body
0= Neither
Did you seem to enter some other, unearthly world?
2 = Clearly mystical or unearthly realm
1 = Unfamiliar, strange place
0= Neither
Did you seem to encounter a mystical being or presence?
2 = Definite being, or voice clearly of mystical or other-worldly origin
1 = Unidentifiable voice
0= Neither
Did you see deceased spirits or religious figures?
2 = Saw them
1 = Sensed their presence
0= Neither
Did you come to a border or point of no return?
2 = A barrier I was not permitted to cross; or "sent back" to life involuntarily
1 = A conscious decision to "return" to life
0= Neither
According to the Rasch rating-scale, this sixteen multiple choice
questionnaire can be universally applied to all NDEs. It yields the same
results no matter the age and gender of the victim, the intensity of
the experience, or how much time elapsed between taking the survey and
the NDE itself. With the results ranging from 0 to 32, the average score
is 15 and the one standard deviation below the mean is 7. Scores below 7
are a subtle NDE while 8 is considered a "deep" one. A NDE recorded
above 8 is stated to be intense.
This scale has helped many researchers advance and enrich their
discovery, most notably, Dr. Long. Jeffrey Long set out to discover the
'reality' of near death experiences mostly linked to cardiac arrest
victims by using this scale and reviewing NDERF studies.
His first line of evidence shows that 835 out of 1122 NDE victims
seemed to feel an increase in alertness and consciousness while studies
proved no sign of electrical brain activity. His second line of evidence
studies the increase of accuracy developed by NDE survivors defining
their resuscitation process with a 97.6% accuracy rate. Dr. Long goes
even further in his research with 7 more lines of evidence that all
point to realism in NDE experiences, yet all of them not being
verifiable or defined by today's medical advances and technology. Having
such an abnormally large amount (95.6% out of 1000 participants) of NDE
victims proclaiming NDEs as real experiences, it is reasonable to
assume that they might be inexplicably real. In short, a doctors
research combined with 35 years worth of research has only promoted NDE
as medically inexplicable, yet most probably a real phenomenon.
After-effects
NDEs are associated with changes in personality and outlook on life.
Ring has identified a consistent set of value and belief changes
associated with people who have had a near-death experience. Among these
changes, he found a greater appreciation for life, higher self-esteem,
greater compassion for others, less concern for acquiring material
wealth, a heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, desire to
learn, elevated spirituality, greater ecological sensitivity and
planetary concern, a feeling of being more intuitive, no longer worrying about death, and claiming to have witnessed an afterlife. While people who had experienced NDEs become more spiritual, it doesn't mean they become necessarily more religious. However, not all after-effects are beneficial
and Greyson describes circumstances where changes in attitudes and
behavior can lead to psychosocial and psychospiritual problems.
Historical reports
NDEs have been recorded since ancient times.
The oldest known medical report of near-death experiences was written
by Pierre-Jean du Monchaux, an 18th-century French military doctor who
described such a case in his book "Anecdotes de Médecine".
Monchaux hypothesized that an influx of blood in the brain stimulated a
strong feeling in the individual, and therefore caused a near-death
experience. In the 19th century a few studies moved beyond individual cases - one privately done by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and one in Switzerland. Up to 2005, 95% of world cultures are known to have made some mention of NDEs.
A number of more contemporary sources report the incidence of near death experiences as:
17% amongst critically ill patients, in nine prospective studies from four different countries.
Bruce Greyson (psychiatrist), Kenneth Ring (psychologist), and Michael Sabom (cardiologist),
helped to launch the field of near-death studies and introduced the
study of near-death experiences to the academic setting. From 1975 to
2005, some 2,500 self-reported individuals in the US had been reviewed
in retrospective studies of the phenomena with an additional 600 outside the US in the West, and 70 in Asia.
Additionally, prospective studies had identified 270 individuals.
Prospective studies review groups of individuals (e.g., selected
emergency room patients) and then find who had an NDE during the study's
time; such studies cost more to perform.
In all, close to 3,500 individual cases between 1975 and 2005 had been
reviewed in one or another study. All these studies were carried out by
some 55 researchers or teams of researchers.
Melvin L. Morse, head of the Institute for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and colleagues have investigated near-death experiences in a pediatric population.
Clinical research in cardiac arrest patients
Parnia's study in 2001
In 2001, Sam Parnia
and colleagues published the results of a year-long study of cardiac
arrest survivors that was conducted at Southampton General Hospital. 63
survivors were interviewed. They had been resuscitated after being clinically dead
with no pulse, no respiration, and fixed dilated pupils. Parnia and
colleagues investigated out-of-body experience claims by placing figures
in areas where patients were likely to be resuscitated on suspended
boards facing the ceiling, not visible from the floor. Four had
experiences that, according to the study criteria, were NDEs but none of
them experienced the out-of-body experience. Thus, they were not able
to identify the figures.
Psychologist Chris French
wrote regarding the study "unfortunately, and somewhat atypically, none
of the survivors in this sample experienced an out of body experience".
In 2001, Pim van Lommel,
a cardiologist from the Netherlands, and his team conducted a study on
NDEs including 344 cardiac arrest patients who had been successfully
resuscitated in 10 Dutch hospitals. Patients not reporting NDEs were
used as controls for patients who did, and psychological (e.g., fear
before cardiac arrest), demographic (e.g., age, sex), medical (e.g.,
more than one cardiopulmonary resuscitation
(CPR)), and pharmacological data were compared between the two groups.
The work also included a longitudinal study where the two groups (those
who had had an NDE and those who had not had one) were compared at two
and eight years, for life changes. One patient had a conventional out of
body experience. He reported being able to watch and recall events
during the time of his cardiac arrest. His claims were confirmed by
hospital personnel. "This did not appear consistent with hallucinatory
or illusory experiences, as the recollections were compatible with real
and verifiable rather than imagined events".
Awareness during Resuscitation (AWARE) study
While at University of Southampton, Parnia was the principal investigator of the AWARE Study, which was launched in 2008.
This study which concluded in 2012 included 33 investigators across 15
medical centers in the UK, Austria and the US and tested consciousness,
memories and awareness during cardiac arrest. The accuracy of claims of
visual and auditory awareness was examined using specific tests.
One such test consisted of installing shelves, bearing a variety of
images and facing the ceiling, hence not visible to hospital staff, in
rooms where cardiac-arrest patients were more likely to occur. The
results of the study were published in October 2014; both the launch and
the study results were widely discussed in the media.
A review article analyzing the results reports that, out of 2,060
cardiac arrest events, 101 of 140 cardiac arrest survivors could
complete the questionnaires. Of these 101 patients 9% could be
classified as near-death experiences. Two more patients (2% of those
completing the questionnaires) described "seeing and hearing actual
events related to the period of cardiac arrest". These two patients'
cardiac arrests did not occur in areas equipped with ceiling shelves
hence no images could be used to objectively test for visual awareness
claims. One of the two patients was too sick and the accuracy of her
recount could not be verified. For the second patient, however, it was
possible to verify the accuracy of the experience and to show that
awareness occurred paradoxically some minutes after the heart stopped,
at a time when "the brain ordinarily stops functioning and cortical
activity becomes isoelectric (i.e. without any discernible electric
activity)." The experience was not compatible with an illusion,
imaginary event or hallucination since visual (other than of ceiling
shelves' images) and auditory awareness could be corroborated.
AWARE II
As of May 2016, a posting at the UK Clinical Trials Gateway website described plans for AWARE II,
a two-year multicenter observational study of 900-1500 patients
experiencing cardiac arrest, which said that subject recruitment had
started on 1 August 2014 and that the scheduled end date was 31 May
2017. The study was extended, continuing until 2020.
In 2019, a report of a condensed version of the study with 465 patients
was released. Only one patient remembered the auditory stimuli while
none remembered the visual.
Meditation-Induced NDEs
A three-year longitudinal study has revealed that some Buddhist meditation
practitioners are able to willfully induce near-death experiences at a
pre-planned point in time. Unlike traditional NDEs, participants were
consciously aware of experiencing the meditation-induced NDE and
retained control over its content and duration. The Dalai Lama
has also asserted that experienced meditators can deliberately induce
the NDE state during meditation, being able to recognize and sustain it.
Explanatory models
In a review article, psychologist Chris French
has grouped approaches to explain NDEs in three broad groups which "are
not distinct and independent, but instead show considerable overlap":
spiritual theories (also called transcendental), psychological theories,
and physiological theories that provide a physical explanation for
NDEs.
Spiritual or transcendental theories
French
summarizes this model by saying: "the most popular interpretation is
that the NDE is exactly what it appears to be to the person having the
experience".
The NDE would then represent evidence of the supposedly immaterial
existence of a soul or mind, which would leave the body upon death. An
NDE would then provide information about an immaterial world where the
soul would journey upon ending its existence on earth.
According to Greyson
some NDE phenomena cannot be easily explained with our current
knowledge of human physiology and psychology. For instance, at a time
when they were unconscious, patients could accurately describe events as
well as report being able to view their bodies "from an out-of-body
spatial perspective". In two different studies of patients who had
survived a cardiac arrest, those who had reported leaving their bodies
could describe accurately their resuscitation procedures or unexpected
events, whereas others "described incorrect equipment and procedures".
Sam Parnia also refers to two cardiac arrest studies and one deep
hypothermic circulatory arrest study where patients reported visual
and/or auditory awareness occurring when their brain function had
ceased. These reports "were corroborated with actual and real events".
Five prospective studies have been carried out, to test the
accuracy of out of body perceptions by placing "unusual targets in
locations likely to be seen by persons having NDEs, such as in an upper
corner of a room in the emergency department, the coronary care unit, or
the intensive care unit of a hospital." Twelve patients reported
leaving their bodies, but none could describe the hidden visual targets.
Although this is a small sample, the failure of purported out-of-body
experiencers to describe the hidden targets raises questions about the
accuracy of the anecdotal reports described above.
Some patients floated in the opposite direction of the targets
Some patients were floating just above the body thus not high enough to see the targets
One patient reported that he was too focused on observing the body
to look for any targets. Also, he alleges that he would be able to see
them if he had told him to look for them.
Psychologist James Alcock has described the afterlife claims of NDE researchers as pseudoscientific.
Alcock has written the spiritual or transcendental interpretation "is
based on belief in search of data rather than observation in search of
explanation."
Chris French has noted that "the survivalist approach does not appear
to generate clear and testable hypotheses. Because of the vagueness and
imprecision of the survivalist account, it can be made to explain any
possible set of findings and is therefore unfalsifiable and
unscientific."
Hinduism
In his book Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is,
commenting the 7th verse of the 15th chapter, Prabhupada writes:
"when a living entity gives up this material embodiment and enters into
the spiritual world, he revives his spiritual body, and in his spiritual
body he can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead face to face. He can
hear and speak to Him face to face".
Psychological explanations
French
summarises the main psychological explanations which include: the
depersonalization, the expectancy and the dissociation models.
Depersonalization model
A
depersonalization model was proposed in the 1970s by professor of
psychiatry Russell Noyes and clinical psychologist Roy Kletti, which
suggested that the NDE is a form of depersonalization
experienced under emotional conditions such as life-threatening danger,
potentially inescapable danger, and that the NDE can best be understood
as a hallucination.
According to this model, those who face their impending death become
detached from the surroundings and their own bodies, no longer feel
emotions, and experience time distortions.
This model suffers from a number of limitations to explain NDEs
for subjects who do not experience a sensation of being out of their
bodies; unlike NDEs, experiences are dreamlike, unpleasant and
characterized by "anxiety, panic and emptiness".
Also, during NDEs subjects remain very lucid of their identities, and
their sense of identity is not changed unlike those experiencing
depersonalization.
Expectancy model
Another
psychological theory is called the expectancy model. It has been
suggested that although these experiences could appear very real, they
had actually been constructed in the mind, either consciously or
subconsciously, in response to the stress of an encounter with death (or
perceived encounter with death), and did not correspond to a real
event. In a way, they are similar to wish-fulfillment: because someone
thought they were about to die, they experienced certain things in
accordance with what they expected or wanted to occur. Imagining a
heavenly place was in effect a way for them to soothe themselves through
the stress of knowing that they were close to death.
Subjects use their own personal and cultural expectations to imagine a
scenario that would protect them against an imminent threat to their
lives.
Subjects' accounts often differed from their own "religious and
personal expectations regarding death" which contradicts the hypothesis
they may have imagined a scenario based on their cultural and personal
background.
Although the term NDE was first coined in 1975 and the experience
first described then, recent descriptions of NDEs do not differ from
those reported earlier than 1975. The only exception is the more
frequent description of a tunnel. Hence, the fact that information
about these experiences could be more easily obtained after 1975 did not
influence people's reports of the experiences.
Another flaw of this model can be found in children's accounts of
NDEs. These are similar to adults', despite children being less
strongly affected by religious and cultural influences about death.
Dissociation model
The
dissociation model proposes that NDE is a form of withdrawal to protect
an individual from a stressful event. Under extreme circumstances, some
people may detach from certain unwanted feelings in order to avoid
experiencing the emotional impact and suffering associated with them.
The person also detaches from one's immediate surroundings.
Birth model
The
birth model suggests that near-death experiences could be a form of
reliving the trauma of birth. Since a baby travels from the darkness of
the womb to light and is greeted by the love and warmth of the nursing
and medical staff, and so, it was proposed, the dying brain could be
recreating the passage through a tunnel to light, warmth and affection.
Reports of leaving the body through a tunnel are equally frequent
among subjects who were born by cesarean section and natural birth.
Also, newborns do not possess "the visual acuity, spatial stability of
their visual images, mental alertness, and cortical coding capacity to
register memories of the birth experience".
Physiological explanations
A wide range of physiological theories of the NDE have been put forward including those based upon cerebral hypoxia, anoxia, and hypercapnia; endorphins and other neurotransmitters; and abnormal activity in the temporal lobes.
Neurobiological factors in the experience have been investigated by researchers in the field of medical science and psychiatry. Among the researchers and commentators who tend to emphasize a naturalistic and neurological base for the experience is the BritishpsychologistSusan Blackmore (1993), with her "dying brain hypothesis".
"type 1 NDEs are due to bilateral frontal and occipital, but
predominantly right hemispheric brain damage affecting the right
temporal-parietal junction and characterized by out of body experiences,
altered sense of time, sensations of flying, lightness vection and
flying"
"type 2 NDEs are also due to bilateral frontal and occipital, but
predominantly left hemispheric brain damage affecting the left temporal
parietal junction and characterized by feeling of a presence, meeting
and communication with spirits, seeing of glowing bodies, as well as
voices, sounds, and music without vection"
They suggest that damage to the bilateral occipital cortex
may lead to visual features of NDEs such as seeing a tunnel or lights,
and "damage to unilateral or bilateral temporal lobe structures such as
the hippocampus
and amygdala" may lead to emotional experiences, memory flashbacks or a
life review. They concluded that future neuroscientific studies are
likely to reveal the neuroanatomical basis of the NDE which will lead to
the demystification of the subject without needing paranormal
explanations.
Animation of the human left temporal lobe
French has written that the "temporal lobe is almost certain to be
involved in NDEs, given that both damage to and direct cortical
stimulation of this area are known to produce a number of experiences
corresponding to those of the NDE, including OBEs, hallucinations, and
memory flashbacks".
Vanhaudenhuyse et al. 2009 reported that recent studies employing deep brain stimulation and neuroimaging have demonstrated that out-of-body experiences result from a deficient multisensory integration at the temporoparietal junction
and that ongoing studies aim to further identify the functional
neuroanatomy of near-death experiences by means of standardized EEG
recordings.
According to Greyson
multiple neuroanatomical models have been proposed where NDEs have been
hypothesized to originate from different anatomical areas of the brain,
namely: the limbic system, the hippocampus, the left temporal lobe,
Reissner's fiber in the central canal of the spinal cord, the prefrontal
cortex, and the right temporal lobe.
Blanke et al. admit that their model remains speculative due to the lack of data. Likewise Greyson
writes that although some or any of the neuroanatomical models proposed
may serve to explain NDEs and pathways through which they are
expressed, they remain speculative at this stage since they have not
been tested in empirical studies.
Neurochemical models
Some theories explain reported NDE experiences as resulting from drugs used during resuscitation (in the case of resuscitation-induced NDEs) ─ for example, ketamine ─ or from endogenous chemicals that transmit signals between brain cells, neurotransmitters:
In the early eighties, Daniel Carr wrote that the NDE has characteristics that are suggestive of a limbic lobe syndrome and that the NDE can be explained by the release of endorphins and enkephalins in the brain.
Endorphins are endogenous molecules "released in times of stress and
lead to a reduction in pain perception and a pleasant, even blissful,
emotional state."
Judson and Wiltshaw (1983) noted how the administration of endorphin-blocking agents such as naloxone had been occasionally reported to produce "hellish" NDEs. This would be coherent with endorphins' role in causing a "positive emotional tone of most NDEs".
Morse et al. 1989 proposed a model arguing that serotonin played a more important role than endorphins in generating NDEs, "at least with respect to mystical hallucinations and OBEs".
A 2019 large-scale study found that ketamine, Salvia divinorum, and DMT (and other classical psychedelic substances) are linked to near-death experiences.
According to Parnia, neurochemical models are not backed by data.
This is true for "NMDA receptor activation, serotonin, and endorphin
release" models.
Parnia writes that no data has been collected via thorough and careful
experimentation to back "a possible causal relationship or even an
association" between neurochemical agents and NDE experiences.
Multi-factorial models
The first formal neurobiological model for NDE, included endorphins, neurotransmitters of the limbic system, the temporal lobe and other parts of the brain. Extensions and variations of their model came from other scientists such as Louis Appleby (1989).
Other authors suggest that all components of near-death
experiences can be explained in their entirety via psychological or
neurophysiological mechanisms, although the authors admit that these
hypotheses have to be tested by science.
Low oxygen levels (and G-LOC) model
Low
oxygen levels in the blood (hypoxia or anoxia) have been hypothesized
to induce hallucinations and hence possibly explain NDEs.
This is because low oxygen levels characterize life-threatening
situations and also by the apparent similarities between NDEs and
G-force induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC) episodes.
These episodes are observed with fighter pilots experiencing very
rapid and intense acceleration that result in lack of sufficient blood
supply to the brain. Whinnery
studied almost 1000 cases and noted how the experiences often involved
"tunnel vision and bright lights, floating sensations, automatic
movement, autoscopy, OBEs, not wanting to be disturbed, paralysis, vivid
dreamlets of beautiful places, pleasurable sensations, psychological
alterations of euphoria and dissociation, inclusion of friends and
family, inclusion of prior memories and thoughts, the experience being
very memorable (when it can be remembered), confabulation, and a strong urge to understand the experience."
However, acceleration-induced hypoxia’s primary characteristics
are "rhythmic jerking of the limbs, compromised memory of events just
prior to the onset of unconsciousness, tingling of extremities ..." that
are not observed during NDEs.
Also G-LOC episodes do not feature life reviews, mystical experiences
and "long-lasting transformational aftereffects", although this may be
due to the fact that subjects have no expectation of dying.
Also, hypoxic hallucinations are characterized by "distress and
agitation" and this is very different from near-death experiences which
subjects report as being pleasant.
Altered blood gas levels models
Some investigators have studied whether hypercarbia
or higher than normal carbon dioxide levels, could explain the
occurrence of NDEs. However, studies are difficult to interpret since
NDEs have been observed both with increased levels as well as decreased
levels of carbon dioxide, and finally, some other studies have observed
NDEs when levels had not changed, and there is little data.
Other models
French said that at least some reports of NDEs might be based upon false memories.
According to Engmann (2008) near-death experiences of people who are clinically dead
are psychopathological symptoms caused by a severe malfunction of the
brain resulting from the cessation of cerebral blood circulation.
An important question is whether it is possible to "translate" the
bloomy experiences of the reanimated survivors into psychopathologically
basic phenomena, e.g., acoasms (nonverbal auditory hallucinations),
central narrowing of the visual field, autoscopia, visual hallucinations, activation of limbic and memory structures according to Moody's stages. The symptoms suppose a primary affliction of the occipital and temporal cortices under clinical death. This basis could be congruent with the thesis of pathoclisis—the
inclination of special parts of the brain to be the first to be damaged
in case of disease, lack of oxygen, or malnutrition—established eighty
years ago by Cécile Vogt-Mugnier and Oskar Vogt.
Professor of neurology Terence Hines (2003) claimed that near-death experiences are hallucinations caused by cerebral anoxia, drugs, or brain damage.
Greyson has called into question the adequacy of the materialist mind-brain identity model for explaining NDE's.
An NDE often involves vivid and complex mentation, sensation and memory
formation under circumstances of complete disabling of brain function
during general anesthesia or near-complete cessation of cerebral blood
flow and oxygen uptake during cardiac arrest. Materialist models predict
that such conscious experiences should be impossible under these
conditions. The mind-brain identity model of classic materialist psychology may need to be expanded to adequately explain an NDE.
Cross-cultural aspects
Gregory Shushan published an analysis of the afterlife beliefs of five ancient civilizations and compared them with historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic
afterlife "journeys". Shushan found similarities across time, place,
and culture that he found could not be explained by coincidence; he also
found elements that were specific to cultures; Shushan concludes that
some form of mutual influence between experiences of an afterlife and
culture probably influence one another and that this inheritance, in
turn, influences individual NDEs.
In contrast, it has been argued that near-death experiences and
many of their elements such as vision of God, judgment, the tunnel, or
the life review are closely related to religious and spiritual
traditions of the West. It was mainly Christian visionaries,
Spiritualists, Occultists, and Theosophists of the 19th and 20th century
that reported them.
However, according to Parnia, near-death experiences'
interpretations are influenced by religious, social, cultural
backgrounds. However, the core elements appear to transcend borders and
can be considered universal. In fact, some of these core elements have
even been reported by children (this occurred over many months, whilst
playing and communicated using children's language). In other words, at
an age where they should not have been influenced by culture or
tradition. Also, according to Greyson,
the central features of NDEs are universal and have not been influenced
by time. These have been observed throughout history and in different
cultures.
![3D IC components. Master and the slave boards.[15]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:3DS_die_stacking_concept_model.PNG)
![Atmo-vortex engines.[16] Vortex generators](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conceptual_vortex_engine.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
