One common type of near-death experience is the out-of-body experience, which often involves seeing one’s own body from above. But even though they’re common, how good are they as evidence that a non-physical mind or spirit can actually exit the body?
Well, for one thing none of these experiences has, so far as I know, ever been scientifically confirmed as an actual out-of-body event. At best, the evidence has been inconclusive, as in the case of the widely-reported AWARE study. In addition, there are reasonable alternative explanations for such experiences (in part arising from the fact that the experiences occur in many different situations, such as during sensory deprivation or as a result of hallucinogenic drugs). A third consideration that isn’t as often discussed, though, is this: how a priori reasonable is the claim that these are actual out-of-body events? Or, to put it in Bayesian terms, what is its prior probability?
