Featured Image Credit: Getty stock images
Topics: Science, Conspiracy Theory
Jess Battison
Yeah, sure mate, you’re going to live forever. Sure. But you’re not.
Whether you like it or not, whether you think you’re Peter Pan or not, whether you sing Oasis’ ‘Live Forever’ every day or not, we’re all going to die at some point.
I’m not even trying to be morbid, it’s just the truth. But while we all know it’s fact that time will get the best of all of us, not everyone is so sure about what happens next.
For some, we simply vanish off the face of the earth in every sense and are never to be seen again. Yet for others, there’s such thing as the afterlife.
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And while plenty of people have claimed to have had spiritual experiences or have ‘seen the other side’, an expert has given a scientific response to whether it’s really possible. Sorry to believers but basically, he thinks it’s ridiculous.
Cosmologist and physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, Sean Carroll, says life after death is ‘impossible’.
In order for the afterlife to exist, the theory needs the premise that human consciousness is separate from our physical bodies.
But, scientists believe consciousness is the result of atoms and electrons and not a soul that can be separate from a human body.
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"Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle,” Dr Carroll continued.
"The laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood. And there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die."
The expert also uses the Quantum Field Theory (QFT) as proof an afterlife doesn’t exist. This essentially says that each type of particle has a field within the universe; one for electrons, one for photons and an additional one for every kind of particle there is.
And quantum tests have not found a ‘spirit’ particle – so there’s no field for that.
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Look, this might all be disappointing to afterlife believers but there’s still plenty of people who stick to their belief after their own experiences – like Bob Mortimer.
During a triple bypass surgery, the comedian’s heart stopped for over half an hour and afterwards he revealed he had a ‘near death experience’.
“I did see the light at the end of the tunnel. I experienced going towards the light and feeling happier than I have ever felt, ever," he told Kathy Burke's Where There's A Will, There's A Wake podcast.
"It was quite extraordinary, and then I woke up a day later and I was OK. I thought, ‘This is great. I no longer fear death and everything'.”