From floating up to be greeted by Harambe and Doge or becoming a ghost to haunt our enemies, we all have different ideas of what might happen to us when we die.
While some hospice nurses share reasons for why there is an afterlife, other people believe we simply do just die and that’s the end of it. No pearly gates, no drifting round the room and no rewatching a highlights reel of your memories.
It’s just light’s out, end of the show.
And a bloke has given a simple ‘light’s out’ explanation of what happens when us humans do meet our deaths.
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American physicist and parapsychologist Edwin C. May recently appeared on the Shawn Ryan Show Podcast.
The founder of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory, he is the former Director of the CIA’s secretive Stargate Project and sat down with Ryan for a lengthy discussion - at well over three hours - on YouTube.
From discussing the likes of spoon bending and whether or not ghosts are real, the podcast host also asked May what he thinks happens when we die.
And he simply responded: “Nothing.”
“You think we’re just dead, light’s out?” Ryan asked.
It’s an easy ‘yep’ for the physicist who went on to discuss our consciousness as humans.
“I can’t say my experience yet,” he began. “I’ve done a lot of reading and most neuroscientists believe that consciousness is a outgrowth of the brain, an emergent property of the brain.
“And if that is true, consciousness cannot survive burning the brain in a crematorium after your dead. It can’t do it.”
However, May has expressed hopes that one day, maybe in 50 years time (or even 10), scientists will have a better explanation for and understanding of consciousness. And therefore, we might have a slightly more interesting answer for what it’s like when we do meet our end.
People did comment on a TikTok clip of the interview to say: “No one knows with certainty. But I’ve not yet seen any evidence for consciousness existing outside of the brain.”
Others offered up their thoughts of ‘reincarnation’ and ‘sleeping but not dreaming’.
However, many agreed with May as they wrote: “The afterlife, soul etc etc is made up by humans through fear of death. It’s proven, lights out, nothingness. Same as before life.”
As another echoed: “We didn’t exist before we were born and we’ll no longer exist after we die. No difference.”
Ah, there’s nothing like a few existential thoughts to get you going.
Topics: Science
Jess Battison