Near-death experiences and consciousness

Well, no, it doesn't. The study didn't even measure brain activity, so they had no way of knowing whether or not brain activity had ceased.I take it you haven't actually read the study. Van Lommel's remarks are supported by absolutely nothing actually contained in his study, and your entire post is an attempt to equivocate his personal, unsupported speculations with legitimate scientific research and discovery. The fact is that this is not a fact; the entire study has one anecdote about a comatose - not brain-dead - man remembering where his dentures were. In other studies of the same thing, respondents were consistently inaccurate about what actually went on during their resuccitation; the most likely experience is that they're simply conflating things they've watched on TV medical shows with what actually happened. Which is not surprising; most medical TV programs are either written and created by doctors, or have very good medical consultants.Once again, you've completely misunderstood what peer-review research is. You've completely ignored the fact that none of Van Lommel's statements appear to be supported by his research. He's either a poor scientist indeed, or drastically misquoted for this article. And your attempt to bait-and-switch - trying to offer a media interview as "scientific proof" is just further evidence of your disgusting, insulting mendacity.

In the study, they aren't defining it - they're using cardiac arrest as a clinical definition of death.

The statement of belief is the unsupported assumption that the experience itself happens during the time of loss of brain function. Also, the study doesn't specifically indicate that the patients were uniformly in an arrested state long enough for brain function to cease, as near as I can tell. Van Lommel doesn't even come right out and say that every patient had no brain activity while they experienced their NDE, probably because he knows it's not possible to verify exactly when the experience took place.

Really? I think it pretty well shows that you don't know what the word "anecdotal" means. (Also, there's no such word as "biasness".)

But nobody's brain does store everything they think and experience. I mean, how much stuff have you forgotten? How much do you simply not pay any attention to in the first place? How often are you thinking about the way your clothes feel? Or how much your hair weighs?Haven't you ever gotten in the car to drive a significant distance, and when you get there, you remember absolutely nothing about the trip? Nobody remembers a continuous video of their lives, so these calculations are meaningless. Is that 1024 bits, or 10^24 bits? The first doesn't really seem like a stretch for the brain.Anyway, the idea that the brain "isn't enough" is just nonsense. If the brain doesn't do the thinking and remembering, then why do we have brains? And why does damage to the brain change, literally, the way you think? How does psychopharmacology work if the brain isn't actually where the thinking and remembering happens? Which is a very good proof that these "visions" are simply artifacts produced by the brain. And she's never watched ER? Or the Discovery Channel? I could probably describe the conversations held between the doctors and nurses at that time, with probably the same degree of accuracy.

Sure. He's driven by an agenda to establish a pseudo-scientific basis for the existence of the soul. It's clear from his paper, and clear from his comments. Otherwise he wouldn't be making these statements in the absence of any evidence.

If it can exist without the brain; remain in the physical world and make observations, hear sounds, see things, etc - why do we need brains at all? Why not have an empty skull? Maybe with a little hatch on the back to store things?What do our brains do if not thinking and remembering? And if that's not what they do, then why do drugs work?

Sorry, friend. For future reference: see the big green frog over there on the left? That's your warning. Try not to ingest beverages until after you've finished reading.