Lewis belgian neurologist recognized worldwide as a leading Clinical Research or in the field of neurology of consciousness and bliss topic so glad that youre with us today. All right so im going to jump right in whistle you never speech knocked unconscious right or lost consciousness but speed speaking scientifically can we actually measure lost consciousness i mean is. Someone who has been knocked out by mike tyson for instance really unconscious at that moment. Well i dont know what it is like to be. My. Question about. When we lose i think the historical. We. All or nothing. You either knocked out unconscious or come of those or your conscious and this black and white decision is. Probably wrong with others so that consciousness. And losses of countries this can be very gradual and i think this is this is very important historically when i started this research in the ninetys we had a coma. And there was. What we. Call and resistance vegetative states where people looked away but were considered unconscious and basically just waiting to die now we know that many patients we thought were unconscious or so. And so this is very important that you can be more or less says that consciousness is not the all or nothing ok i think that this talk will be about different gradations of how much will lose conscience and what conscious really is in different states for instance some people write their report saying all kinds of wild things during a near death experience which would call an unconscious state of mind i know that some Scientists Say oh these are just how listen ations but if my brain is hallucinating in this state right in means i still have conscious is just you know tripping on something so does that mean that even in a state of comma a human being possesses like you say minimal or some sort of consciousness we have a notion of how much could that be and what is it. I think youre absolute 0 i aint that a dead the air we is made is when trying to measure consciousness how do we do that were having this discussion right now were talking if you will come talk we will use sign language or something so the only person right now so who knows what she sending feeling is you and you alone so you need to share that and of course if you who are coming up those considered unconscious can no longer communicate and so what do we do we basically look from the outside its myself as a clinician as someone who tries to measure and measurable consciousness im gonna ask questions and so in intensive care we feel that a severe traumatic brain injury or a bleeding who survived a cardiac arrest and or in this town that i was safe i would ask him to do something squeeze my hands make any movements and then if i had a announcer i kind of test proof that they are conscious but of course when they dump it on sir did i really prove that theyre on townships no so this is very tricky were making inferences based on peoples motor response when trying to measure consciousness article and sometimes we can get it wrong and i think as you said we have underestimated the capacity of the brain. Off to colo when we think theres nothing going on like in some patients off to coma like in people who have a near death experience this is very clear evidence that this idea is they can have a very rich subject this personal. Concealing but also like you know we see this in the movies and sometimes we hear someone who has been in a coma our reputation state for a long time and the relatives for instance refusing to give up on that person every day being by his side and talking to him believing that he can hear them and then sometimes miracles happen this people come out of fed a tape of states or commas and they start living normally gradually and most of them actually say that they could hear people talking to them while they were unconscious do you see how that happens well absolutely i think with the scene we contribute to do a better understanding residual grace function after coma and so it was in the European Task force and also now the American Academy of neurology we propose it more neutral term which is under sciences weight so. From now well try to refer to these people no longer as educated but as unresponsive they just no longer respond to questions and yet they look away and indeed this is a difficult i know theres a substantial. Fraction of these patients who have soft ceilings emotions and itself and very frustrating because we count axis so what theyre actually perceiving and that is the end of their energy and thats the expertise of the team here because science book when we use functional m. R. I. Hi this is easy if you see some machines here behind me all possible measures to try. And document whats going on inside so we no longer depend on the motor response we can go and measured directly whats happening in iraq so i read that you have located the area out the brain that is responsible for ending seeing this vision. Tunnel into the afterlife so how rare would you say this experience is sounding if you can physically observe the impulses creating them so it ends what do you mean by real its we have. A scientific challenge to define what is reality but i think its very real slow down and i think its a season article reality where i dont think we should be too arrogant this is being many years now that weve that seen with trying to understand these near death experiences that nobody truly can explain and maybe if i can sophia. Has a little request for everybody watching us now in russia who maybe had such an experience or who knows someone who had a near death experience please share it with scientists share it with us email addresses very simple and deep from near death experience. Thats be or visit our website i created a sunday show and its mind air might carry out sunday show where including with our friends in russia all over the world we try to reduce our insurance when talking about consciousness including the very 2nd aging topic of near death experiences that we need more testimonies we have over thousands but sometimes i feel frustrated because i never had one so i should start by listening very carefully to people who have. And then try to understand so they temper apparent told junction as far as i understand is also linked to things like schizophrenia alzheimers. In the case of grey. My favorite organ and youre absolutely right that we have part of the brain right here in the middle its on the right side where if i was simulate it and even Healthy People one could prove folk socalled out of body experience so this is interesting now i dont think we should again say that just this part of the brain explains near death experience its too reductionistic but it is interesting to have some hypothesis another part here is important for this feeling of presence then of course deep assisted told. Tracks that are quite sensitive still lack of oxygen can give this kind of tunnels it isnt this bright centralized and we also know the stories about people having flashbacks of their lives and this is a structure here deep in the temporal lobe that is important for memory where we have patients was my brain a free stroke that sometimes the stories that are making me think of near death experience with a gann i think were not there yet we are making brain scans in people who had any of that experience and trying to make correlations the truly presently it would be too arrogant to say well this is just this our death chemical process in this or that part of the brain weve understood it and know i think we need to be more curious and to study it but also with an open mind because some treasonous truly is one of the biggest mysteries sizes trying to solve ok lets say we stop dismissing near death experiences as just a person and you nation right and we accept them as important brain activity what can we really say about them as of now definitely what are they back when from near a science point of view. Well the scientists will tell you be careful. What is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow so it is about the scientific methodology strine to construct what to crush them to under said was what you dont you can measure and so currently yes we have a couple of hypothesis we got a number of space perceived it seems that kind of reduce our ignorance but its still a challenge for science im fascinated by the sat that people have for us and look harder caressed when we know that the brain is using so much energy there is no other organ in your body needs so much energy and suddenly theres a lot for a number of energy these people have these very rich and details. And memories of how is that its important to stress that they are not deaths because for some people also this is proof of life after death i wouldnt agree i think currently that is really a from tear it is a code for us to study we consider it in society as well indeed binary youre either dead or alive with biologically speaking this is a process and now with modern medicine and technology we can resuscitate some people for example was a cardiac arrest and we need to increase our efforts to understand the process of dying and at one point to become serious 1st of all and that is what we consider the best so a near death really so theres. Wishes as the Scientific Community as a medical community the more curious and to study this phenomenon more and i think we were a little bit afraid we considered this so complicated and we. Suffered from otto censorship we considered this maybe as a witch it should stand well that take a short break right now when were back well continue talking to dr steven law has seen one of the worlds leading researchers in a neurologist consciousness stay with us. L. Look forward to talking to you all that technology should work for people. I robot must obey the orders given to by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the 1st law show your identification for should be very careful about official intelligence and the point obesity is to create trust our volunteer. Links on various chimes in with Artificial Intelligence will summon the demon. A robot must protect its own existence and. A lot of people talking about is this the beginning of china as the worlds superpower or but theyre not thinking about another end of an era and that would be the central banks. Americans love. This was a fundamental part of how our Political Leadership and our country at large understood the bargain you get a hope and then you know rebel right as the things you dont revolt if you have a stake in the system. To be really interesting. And think about the longer deeper history housings men in the United States not just that question of the American Dream but the bigger question of who the dream is for. And were back with professor stephen last belgian researcher professor of neurology talking about what consciousness is and how much do we really know about it stephen when you have that near death experience everyone has very different visions i mean some people see there that parents some say their lovers some see tunnels but is there something anything from with people you spoken to who have shared their experience with you about this vision. That they have in common for instance if i matheson i dont believe in afterlife right and i my my my my brain functions in a way that i dont i dont believe there will be a tunnel after i died that i see right with a light leaving me to have an or whatever will i see the same thing as a person that for instance is very religious and believes in an afterlife is there like a common thing a Common Threat that all the near death experiences have yes there is i think there is something universal across the whole coach others and we try to. Give it time to stop so what is the most. Common in the. Mostly. Christian. West or. The 1st one is that they all sealy extreme the good sometimes they dont even the worst to express how good they sound and then its really difficult to come next is this notion less. Than the others by the experience they lose track just. And it was very interesting in this discussion. With father sergei who always a. Religious leader in the Orthodox Church but also discussed this with people. Indeed thats his care and he said that in his experience about 60 or so patients had negative experience and that is something that maybe we should try to explore more and hence again i think i would lie and more people from russia to share this and to compare it with what we see. In belgium and france in the United States where we have now sauza its a specimen east. Another example it strikes me is the interpretation of the tunnel you mentioned already which seems to be different when talking with my colleagues in the muslim world where it would be sometimes interpreted as a door or in india where when i did come for instance and we also collaborate there its more like a river so yes something seems to be clearly universal but also there are difference individual differences that may be also cultural differences that they currently are too anecdotal rini more evidence what maybe we can compare to is greek strikes i dont know socio if you ever had a near death experience. So it is difficult for us to talk about but you had dreams right i had to move all the time and i think your dreams and my dreams somehow are similar in their surrealistic contents and we can yes say that there is something dreamlike the discourse mind dreams and be very different in their precise content then yours so my answer about near death experiences is i think this is a sees a logical reality that needs more science that has a shared common structure but also with maybe a personal meaning that can depend on where we were up and of course my friends and colleagues in india will hear much. Less frequently people talking about the virgin mary or jesus and vice versa here we have less people talking about some indian guts than the again this needs to be documented more. More want more details matter but when you asked me if i am an atheist with that a near death experience yes and maybe youll even have a missy experiences so far when we look at the dozens of tests in venice we have is very hard for me to predicts we have very religious people who have these experiences sometimes they will indeed read this as something that brings them closer to god that they will become more religious but not necessarily and also vice versa so i think its not just i a very religious person so i have this or that near death experience i think there is this a biological substrates will often run out of options and now were talking about assisted dash for those who lost consciousness for avar. So in your opinion does that mean that we quaid being conscious with being alive in a sense so when my heart beats and my body functions but my brain is unresponsive coklat cognitively dad am i still a life its. A very important question where. We as a definition for death ok well done that is when your heart and lungs and brain cease to function and areas are simple then say this is more complicated when a decision is entered in the machine the our decision rests or it let me and show you such a machine. So this change the course of history its redefined that this machine by the way is calls osea this auster greek the e. C. Decision does of the oxalis was this so this machine from the 1st sign katz patients was very very devastating brain damage its breezing through the machine so there something less than could be inserted and as a medical community we redefine death not just of the heart and lung criteria but not also in brain right that is what we call brain death so when your brain is death no according to medicine and according to law you are death theres nothing we can do we can decide. Thats very important and that in mind up there is not much certainty when i see a patient and i at i try to get is a diagnosis it is what we call probabilistic ok it is what i think this patient hasd when we say someone is death. It shouldnt be probabilistic it should be riots we dont want to get this wrong and so maybe also i can reassure the russian viewers we have to strike syria says the 56. 00 and there is never actually been a single patient where deprived year of. Our consciousness ok there has been diagnostic errors and medical professional errors but if you do the job correctly then brain death truly is death so i read you managed to match your brain activity seemingly unconscious patients by looking and prayed metabolise and so basically consciousness can be observed by counting how much energy the brain is consuming but what about the future one of the possibilities of brain scanning and in future what will scientists realistically be able to sing side of human brain thats saying teniers honestly yeah you know. So sometimes we make big claims i listened to. His company youre a lady whos trying to plug in. Computers into the human brain thats great is yes Wonderful Technology but. I think the complexity of the human brain and more importantly the human mind is tremendous. So i dont know whats going to be possible in 10 years. We dont even know what we dont know so as we enter service. 50 percent when we talk about the human brain and minds or 5 percent or 0. 005 percent so truly this is fascinating time yes we have all these things knowledge and see here grace. Machines that permit houses to mid and the workings of the human mind but again we shouldnt be too arrogant its our complexity its currently were struggling with and sometimes is those very quickly. Sometimes you know its terribly difficult and slow like when or east the Science Fiction books of my father even my grandfather we would be driving around in flying car us its not happening were still driving around in stupid cars hes 4 wheels so its is very very difficult and i think that the human mind is truly trust us in life itself just as the origin of matter something that one point. Its been more than 25 years that im studying they did the most of this and theres just the sort of. Spiritual. I can study. Today. And we dont know. So interesting talking to you thank you very much for a. Very important topic and you kept saying were actually watched all over the world not only in. So hopefully youll get lots of people sharing their near death experiences with you good luck with everything and hopefully you know little more about what consciousness is and how human brain functions in the near future. Secret prisons are not usually what comes to mind when thinking about europe however even the most prosperous can be deceived within this 0 song there were 2 view houses were our prison was located and the only people had access to the story for investigators l. Z. Uncovered the darkest dealings of the secret services but i mean. The great of nor. For. Crying for justice on. This little more than a week before the election many are asking the question do you believe the polls we have good reason to do so should voters trust the polls if you dont trust the folks will you trust the outcome of the election. You know what i mean maybe at their school. I dont mean a grown man now. I kind of but i wonder. If they now want think its hard enough. Members of the african mafias safe and quick to europe but once they. Leave they count speech you. Will not some of them may be a mom and i couldnt you know. This you know get it out in. The cinquera. They saw all the. Leave it all on court of the a man who. Has the persona but a kid even. Insufficient on trochaic the locks an american nation of peru were jack purchasing the outfits out of the 19 park theme off to lop day is withheld on a trial for them to. Name to shame to the french government confront social media giants for painting to topple online hate speech in the wake of last weeks gruesome a terror attack but its split opinion on the story. 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