Mind beyond the brain: proposal of a pragmatic interactionist framework.

Abstract

The nature of consciousness remains unclear, and academic discussions usually ignore the scientific evidence about anomalous and spiritual experiences suggestive of the mind beyond the brain, mainly because of the lack of a scientific framework that makes sense of these experiences. This manuscript proposes the 'Pragmatic interactionist' scientific framework for the mind-brain relationship based on the evidence from scientific studies of spiritual or anomalous experiences, especially near-death, end-of-life, out-of-body, and mediumistic experiences and alleged memories of previous lives. Based on the epistemic principles of an enlarged empirical base and expanded naturalism, the framework's main components are: interactionist mind-body relationship; the mind exists and functions beyond the brain and survives bodily death; and the brain is a tool and a filter for the mind manifestation. Research proposals to advance and test the framework are: in-depth '360 degrees' studies of the 'good specimen of the class', studies on mind-over-brain phenomena, free-will beyond extreme social and biological factors, enhanced mentation with a dysfunctional brain, reports of veridical hallucination, extracerebral memory, and early sharp personality differences between monozygotic twins. The proposed framework is a working hypothesis to enlarge our observational and analytical capacities to foster theories to better understand the human mind.