The author defends the traditional argument that near-death experiences point to a transphysical self—a self not reducible to brain activity—and responds to recent naturalist objections from researchers such as Borjigin and Vicente, who argue that such experiences can be explained by physiological processes. The paper engages with objections accumulated over the last decade, aiming to show that the transphysical interpretation remains viable despite alternative naturalist accounts.
People who have had near-death experiences often report lasting changes: they fear death less, become more moral and spiritual, and feel more certain that life has meaning and that an afterlife exists. Some supernaturalists claim these changes happen because the experience is real. Philosophers John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin offer a naturalist alternative: they interpret NDE narratives metaphorically, preserving their meaning while rejecting supernatural causation. This article argues that Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin’s psychological explanation fails to adequately account for near-death experiences.