Can science support life after death? | Lisa Miller, Nick Lane, Paul Bickley | Beyond the boundary
91Lisa Miller, Nick Lane and Paul Bickley discuss the viability of a secular afterlife.
Is life after death necessarily a religious notion?
Watch the full debate at https://iai.tv/video/beyond-the-boundary?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=description
Less than a third of those in the UK believe in an afterlife. And of those rather more believe in heaven than hell. In a scientific, secular age stories of the afterlife strike many as empty, anachronistic wish fulfilment. But is it a mistake to think that life is prosaic, earthly and simply over when we die? There is, after all, no scientific explanation of consciousness, nor any notion of how material matter could create experience and thought. We don't have an account of how consciousness comes into being and, while some propose that AI might at some point acquire consciousness, there are many philosophers and scientists who argue that no combination of physical machinery will ever be capable of creating thought, consciousness and life.
Have we denied the mystery of life and death because such talk has been tarred by association with specific and implausible religious beliefs? Should we re-engage with the profound strangeness of death and accept that it is beyond our understanding? Or is the mundane and harsh reality that we are a chance combination of organic material that has a limited lifespan and once over is never to return?
This event was produced in affiliation with Theos.
#afterlife #lifeafterdeath #afterliferesearch
Join New York Times Bestseller and professor of Clinical Psychology Lisa Miller, head of research at Theos Paul Bickley, and professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London Nick Lane. Hosted by Güneş Taylor.
00:00 Introduction
00:19 Could the afterlife be part of a scientific account?
00:49 Nick Lane
03:05 Paul Bickley
04:43 Lisa Miller
07:41 Nick Lane
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