Life after death?

Different religions have different conceptions about what happens to man after death. Historically this question has been classified as one of "the great questions" alongside with questions concerning the creation of earth, the origin of man and the existence of God. During the later centuries some of these questions have been answered by science alongside with the development of the scientific world view. Thus it is now an established scientific fact that the earth was created about 4.5 billions years ago.

Inspired by the great progress of natural science a group of scholars in the late 19th century wanted to investigate the question of life after death in a scientific manner. Research into the question of survival of bodily death has since then resided in the field of parapsychology. But can you investigate such a matter scientifically?

At first one will have to realize that life after death has to imply a psychological phenomena which continue after bodily death, i.e. a psychology that is violating the laws of physiology because mental activities normally is connected to chemical processes in the brain.

Traditionally mainstream psychology does not question its physiological foundation. From the point of physiology the doubt towards its biological foundation is even less. And the doubt becomes even lesser as regards to physics.

The conclusion has to be that we must adopt a very sceptical attitude towards the possibility of the mind's survival of bodily death. Some will think that this is an impossibility. However, the scientific world view is based on observations. What if you could find observations which indicate that the mind can survive bodily death? In the field of parapsychology scientists are gathering observations that indicate that the human personality perhaps can survive bodily death, e.g. near death experiences, apparitions and cases suggestive of reincarnation.