The question of what will happen after death has been of interest to mankind since ancient times - from the very moment of the appearance of reflections on the meaning of one's own individuality. Will consciousness, personality be preserved after the death of the physical shell? Where does the soul go after death - scientific facts and the statements of believers equally firmly prove and refute the possibility of an afterlife, immortality, the testimonies of eyewitnesses and scientists equally converge and contradict each other.

Evidence for the existence of the soul after death

To prove the existence of the soul (anima, atman, etc.), humanity has sought since the era of the Sumerian-Akkadian and Egyptian civilizations. In fact, all religious teachings are based on the fact that a person consists of two entities: material and spiritual. The second component is immortal, the basis of the personality, and will exist after the death of the physical shell. What scientists say about life after death does not contradict most of the theses of theologians about the existence of the afterlife, since science originally came out of monasteries when the monks were collectors of knowledge.

After the scientific revolution in Europe, many practitioners tried to isolate and prove the existence of the soul in the material world. In parallel, Western European philosophy defined self-consciousness (self-determination) as the source of a person, his creative and emotional urges, and an incentive for reflection. Against this background, the question arises - what will happen to the spirit that forms the personality after the destruction of the physical body.

Before the development of physics and chemistry, evidence for the existence of the soul was based solely on philosophical and theological works (Aristotle, Plato, canonical religious works). In the Middle Ages, alchemy tried to isolate the anima not only of man, but also of any elements, flora and fauna. Modern science of life after death and medicine try to fix the presence of the soul based on the personal experience of eyewitnesses who experienced near-death experiences, medical data and changes in the state of patients at various points in their lives.

In Christianity

The Christian Church (in its world-recognized directions) regards human life as a preparatory stage of afterlife. This does not mean that the material world does not matter. On the contrary, the main thing that a Christian has to do in life is to live in such a way as to subsequently go to heaven and find eternal bliss. Evidence of the presence of a soul for any religion is not required, this thesis is the basis for religious consciousness, without it it makes no sense. Confirmation of the existence of the soul for Christianity can indirectly serve as the personal experience of believers.

The soul of a Christian, according to dogmas, is a part of God, but capable of independently making decisions, creating and creating. Therefore, there is the concept of posthumous punishment or reward, depending on how a person treated the fulfillment of the commandments during material existence. In fact, after death, two key states are possible (and an intermediate one - only for Catholicism):

• Paradise is the state of the highest bliss, being close to the Creator;
• hell - a punishment for an unrighteous and sinful life that contradicted the commandments of faith, a place of eternal torment;
• purgatory is a place that is present only in the Catholic paradigm. The abode of those who die in peace with God, but need additional cleansing from sins unredeemed during life.

In Islam

The second world religion, Islam, according to dogmatic foundations (the principle of the universe, the presence of a soul, posthumous existence) does not radically differ from Christian postulates. The presence of a particle of the Creator inside a person is determined in the suras of the Koran and the religious works of Islamic theologians. A Muslim must live decently, keep the commandments in order to enter paradise. Unlike the Christian dogma of the Last Judgment, where the judge is the Lord, Allah does not take part in determining where the soul will go after death (two angels judge - Nakir and Munkar).

In Buddhism and Hinduism

In Buddhism (in the European sense) there are two concepts: atman (spiritual essence, higher Self) and anatman (lack of an independent personality and soul). The first refers to out-of-body categories, and the second to the illusions of the material world. Therefore, there is no exact definition of which specific part goes to nirvana (Buddhist paradise) and dissolves into it. One thing is for sure: after the final immersion in the afterlife, the consciousness of each, from the point of view of the Buddhists, merges into the common Self.

The life of a person in Hinduism, as the bard Vladimir Vysotsky accurately noted, is a series of migrations. The soul or consciousness does not fit in heaven or hell, but depending on the righteousness of earthly life, it is reborn into another person, animal, plant or even a stone. From this point of view, there is much more evidence for post-mortem experiences, because there is a sufficient amount of recorded evidence when a person fully told his previous life (given that he could not know about it).

In ancient religions

Judaism has not yet defined its attitude to the very essence of the soul (neshama). In this religion, there are a huge number of directions and traditions that may even contradict each other in basic principles. So, the Sadducees are sure that Neshama is mortal and dies with the body, while the Pharisees considered her immortal. Some currents of Judaism are based on the thesis adopted from Ancient Egypt that the soul must go through a cycle of rebirth in order to achieve perfection.

In fact, every religion is based on the fact that the purpose of earthly life is the return of the soul to its creator. The belief of believers in the existence of an afterlife is based largely on faith, and not on evidence. But there is no evidence to disprove the existence of the soul.

Death from a scientific point of view

The most accurate definition of death, which is accepted among the scientific community, is the irreversible loss of vital functions. Clinical death implies a short-term cessation of breathing, circulation and brain activity, after which the patient returns to life. The number of definitions of the end of life, even in modern medicine and philosophy, exceeds two dozen. This process or fact remains as much a mystery as the fact of the presence or absence of a soul.

Evidence of life after death

"There are many things in the world, friend Horace, that our wise men never dreamed of" - this Shakespearean quote with a great deal of accuracy reflects the attitude of scientists to the unknowable. Just because we don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Finding evidence for the existence of life after death is an attempt to confirm the existence of a soul. Materialists claim that the whole world consists of only particles, but at the same time, the presence of an energy essence, substance or field that creates a person does not contradict classical science due to lack of evidence (for example, the Higgs boson, a recently found particle, was considered fiction).

Testimony of people

In these cases, the stories of people are considered reliable, which are confirmed by an independent commission of psychiatrists, psychologists and theologians. Conventionally, they are divided into two categories: memories of past lives and stories of survivors of clinical death. The first case is the experiment of Ian Stevenson, who established about 2000 facts of reincarnation (under hypnosis, the test person cannot lie, and many of the facts indicated by patients were confirmed by historical data).

Descriptions of the state of clinical death are often explained by the oxygen starvation that the human brain experiences at this time, and they are treated with a considerable amount of skepticism. However, strikingly identical stories that have been recorded for more than one decade may indicate that the fact of the exit of some entity (soul) from the material body at the time of its death cannot be ruled out. It is worth mentioning a large number of descriptions of small details regarding operating rooms, doctors and the environment, the phrases they utter, which patients in a state of clinical death could not know.

History facts

The historical facts of the existence of the afterlife include the resurrection of Christ. Here we mean not only the basis of the Christian faith, but a large number of historical documents that were not interconnected, but described the same facts and events in a single period of time. Also, for example, it is worth mentioning the famous recognized signature of Napoleon Bonaparte, which appeared on the document of Louis XVIII in 1821 after the death of the emperor (recognized as genuine by modern historians).

Death is the complete cessation of life processes. It would seem that the phenomenon is quite obvious from the point of view of science, and, in fact, ordinary - after all, sooner or later it happens to everyone. Nevertheless, death still retains such a mysterious and mystical status that even talk about it is regarded ambiguously. An adult who talks about death in public often receives jokes or worried looks in return. What to say about children who get excuses instead of answers.

All phenomena faced by humanity become the subject of study of some kind of science - and hence education. Let's try to figure out who and why studies the mortal. And then, armed with the approach of death studies, we will talk about how the idea of ​​death has changed, and how it turned out that one of the most basic natural mechanisms has such a strange status.

What are the sciences of death?

The sciences that directly relate to this topic are usually applied or medical in nature. For example, thanatology is a branch of medicine that studies the state of the body in the process of dying. Pathological anatomy deals with post-mortem changes, promotes the study of disease and forensic science.

Bioethics can touch upon the issues of death, talking about the boundaries between living and non-living in relation to technological advances - death in this vein can turn out to be a relative concept and a subject of discussion. Nursing homes and hospices are usually spoken of in the context of research related to the work of the social and economic spheres of society.

A lot of attention has been paid to the psychoanalysis of death - the Freudian theory assumes the presence of an instinct that carries out the "death drive". Of the most key psychological studies, one can recall the work of the American psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who was engaged in the study of near-death experiences and the provision of psychological assistance to the dying. It was she who introduced the well-known classification of the stages of accepting death from denial to humility.

Modern French scientists sought to give a philosophical understanding of death, speaking of the philosophy and aesthetics of disappearance - this term was introduced by Paul Virillo in his work of the same name. For this group of philosophers, reflection on disappearance was the result of the dramatic events of the mid-twentieth century. In the context of the “philosophy of disappearance”, they talk about political and war crimes, global catastrophes, when not only individuals could disappear, changing their name to a robe number and an unmarked grave, but entire cities and peoples disappeared from the face of the earth. Here, death is closely connected with the experience of historical shock, the reflection of which led Theodor Adorno to say that it was impossible to write poetry after Auschwitz, since culture and enlightenment could not prevent anything.

Death as a Phenomenon

The way in which the phenomenon of the termination of life is reflected in culture rarely becomes the subject of independent sociocultural and anthropological consideration. Meanwhile, death studies of a sociocultural persuasion is a separate area of ​​knowledge, which has been discussed more and more often lately. A scientific journal of the same name is published ten times a year, and the Omega periodical, also devoted to the study of death, has existed since the 1970s. In Russia, this field of knowledge is called the sociology of death or necrosociology. Recently, the scientific printed journal "Archaeology of Russian Death" has been published.

Thus, humanitarian thanatology is the science of morality, which studies the experience of understanding death both by an individual and by society, considers the sociocultural mechanisms of death and its reflection in the public consciousness.

Sociologist Dmitry Rogozin talks about studying the social context of death.

The evolution of the perception of the mortal

One of the main issues that death studies consider is how attitudes towards death are changing. Once upon a time, death was included in a context that was understandable to a particular community. There were traditional ritual practices related to both the official church and folk religiosity - beliefs, ritual lamentations, local superstitions and family customs. This contextual "packaging" made death close, understandable, possible to accept. In traditional societies, death does not surprise anyone - while remaining a tragic event, it does not, however, stun.

The existential horror of death, overwhelming panic, the experience of the loss of identity began to be more actively comprehended by culture in the early twentieth century.

At this time, existentialism appears in literature and philosophy, speaking of fragile, single, unique experiences, and in painting - expressionism, spurred on by the horrors of the First World War. Both reflect an interest in the individual experience of the subject, who experiences despair, anxiety and fear.

In most developed countries, with the development of medicine, older relatives began to live longer. Previously, a husband and father could overstrain at work or die at work at any time, but over time, working conditions have changed. Children's and infant graves, as well as the tombs of women who died during childbirth, have ceased to be a sad, but frequent occurrence. "Nuclear buttons" changed the principles of global conflicts and saved millions of people from death in bayonet attacks.

As a result of all this, death moved away from us, turning into an "accident".

If it happens on the road, ambulances and police will soon arrive there, fence off the road, and wash the asphalt with a hose. We also learn about the death of housemates (if we learn at all) when we see the cars of special services. For the modern city dweller, death is what "special people" should do.

In ancient Egypt, the god Anubis was associated with mummification and funeral rituals.

Children and the Taboo of Death

Some great-grandmothers of the old school still sometimes shock their grandchildren today by saying things like: “You will wear this headscarf to my funeral” or giving detailed instructions to their young great-grandchildren on how to wash the body of the deceased. As a rule, parents are shocked by this. They say to the great-grandmother: “Yes, you will outlive us all!”, And the taken aback child is advised to immediately plug his ears.

Like any failure in communication, this drives the problem into the repressed, and also interrupts the mechanism of cultural transmission of near-death rituals.

A common emotion children experience when faced with the death of loved ones is surprise. Sometimes it may seem to parents that the child is callous and indifferent, does not realize the scale of what happened, or behaves inappropriately. And this is true if the topic has always been hushed up. The childish question about whether the grandmother will soon die meets a clearly broadcast condemnation: “Shut up, what are you talking about!”.

Frame from the 1935 film based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Of course, if the grandmother "survives everyone", death in the mind of the child will be first of all strange and unrealistic, and only then - sad. Needless to say about the unexpected death of young people - the very fact that this is even possible is often tabooed. The absence of preconception of death suggests that there is no culture of grief, mourning. As a result, children, like adults alienated from the context, simply do not have established reactions and social codes.

The cradle swings over the abyss. Drowning out the whisper of inspired superstition, common sense tells us that life is but a crack of faint light between two perfectly black eternities. There is no difference in their blackness, but we tend to peer into the pre-life abyss with less confusion than into the one to which we fly at the speed of four thousand five hundred heartbeats per hour.

Vladimir Nabokov "Other Shores"

Speaking of death, we often feel constrained and awkward, as if we are talking about something indecent, although death is completely natural. This is a consequence of the taboo - about the same thing happens when talking about sex. In most cases, progressive parents recognize that the child should be honest about how and why he was born. But when it comes to death, they often get off with excuses. The rope in the house of the hanged man becomes an actualized object of default, the presence of which is all the more tangible the more we are silent about it.

Information technology and death

1) Real and unreal

Although we rarely see near death, in the “society of the spectacle” that the media creates, it surrounds us daily. The mass character and regularity of tragedies can lead to panic if someone decides to read all the sad news avidly. On the one hand, all this really happens, on the other hand, such a number of tragedies is excessive for the perception of a particular person and creates an inadequate picture of the world.

At the same time, death in videos and photographs seems distant and unreal, which reduces the ability to empathize, and in blockbusters with dramatic techniques, the death of characters looks more spectacular and “real” than real tragedies in reports.

2) Cynicism and fear

It may seem that the Internet and popular culture form cynical, indifferent and cruel people who are ready to mock anything, including tragedies. However, even Mikhail Bakhtin made it clear that in the grassroots, folk-square culture, death and laughter are closely connected.

Jokes free from dogmatism, remove the feeling of awkwardness and destroy taboos.

Mortal humor is an attempt to deal with fear and overcome alienation. Moreover, the rougher and flatter it is, the more neurotic the impulse. In fact, network cynicism is in conflict with the complete defenselessness of the modern individual in the face of imminent and real death. The Internet does not make us more cruel or insensitive, but only serves as a tool for instantaneous broadcast of content.

3) Presence effect

Once upon a time, letters traveled for months, and messengers with dispatches could get lost in a snowstorm. Today we worry if someone is not online for several hours. The spread of instant messengers and push notifications creates a feeling of constant "hand on the pulse" - this metaphor itself speaks volumes. At the same time, it is not necessary to get acquainted “live” in order to communicate, play or work together.

Departure to a place out of reach is an event that can become a real stress for a resident of a metropolis.

It is not for nothing that working specialists are advised by services that block notifications, and special techniques that help not turn on the computer on vacation. When the flow of information is interrupted, it is as if we are disconnected from the life support apparatus. Virtual presence becomes synonymous with life itself, and death becomes synonymous with disconnection.

A scene from the TV series Black Mirror.

4) Digital immortality

Previously, only very talented or very rich people could leave something behind, but now everyone has the opportunity to perpetuate their image on the network. At the same time, the existence of pages and accounts of people whose owners have died raises ethical problems. Is it possible to delete such an account or transfer the right to access it to other people? What to do with spam, which, like weeds, fills abandoned pages?

Each of us creates a huge amount of content throughout our lives. What will happen in 50 years with this gigantic amount of data? Some companies are already trying to address this issue. For example, Google offers a service with a streamlined name "Just in case" An that keeps track of whether the user is active. If the program does not wait for confirmation, it will delete the account and send a letter to a trusted person.

The sociology of death allows you to learn more about culture based on how it interprets this phenomenon, makes it possible to look at society from an unexpected angle. Morality studies will not reveal anything about the afterlife and will not provide ready-made answers to personal questions. In the same way, ontology, the science of being, does not answer the question about the "meaning of life", but talks about the world in terms of existence.

But they can help dispel prejudices, make us more honest by removing prohibitions, and stronger by having a method.

Death will love each of us, no matter how we fight it. Eat only healthy food, run in the morning, give up alcohol, avoid stress, modernize the body with cybernetics, inject antibiotics, swallow vitamins, do it all at once, and then welcome to the coffin, do not forget to close the lid tightly.

There is no such crazy professor in the world who can resurrect you or - such personalities live only in books, but in films of the level of "Reanimator". However, who, if not scientists, knows more about death? The scientific mind is closely related to the problem of death. Science and death entered into a kind of marriage after the most devastating epidemic in the history of mankind - the medieval plague, popularly referred to as the "black death". It was after 2/3 of the population of Europe ended up in the ground (in Italy they buried people in whole rows - a layer of sand, a layer of corpses, a layer of sand, a layer of corpses, “lasagna”), a learned person decided to take his head and, finally, think about death, its nature, purpose and methods of dealing with it. Since then, many "theories of death" have appeared, which are supported by research, logical constructions and experiments, but none of them is leading and fully understood. People of science are still working in this direction, revealing the secret bit by bit. Their ideas are so unique and interesting that today we decided to take a course on them. We will discuss death, and not from the point of view of philosophy or society, but from the point of view of science. It is rarely discussed in this context.

1. Quantum suicide

Let's start with large-scale ideas based on quanta - a toy of modern physics, which denotes an indivisible portion of a quantity (yes, you have to get into Wikipedia).

Quantum suicide is such a thought experiment in quantum mechanics. It was proposed by two guys and, as usual, they did it independently of each other with a difference of one year: Hans Moravec told about quantum suicide in 1987, and Bruno Marshall told about him in 1988. The experiment itself can be understood even by the uninitiated.

His conclusion is that every event in space-time causes the universe to divide itself into different versions containing all possible outcomes. Let's say we are supporters of the multiple interpretation of the Universe, and we are also sick scientists who are conducting an experiment on the unfortunate, the essence of which is a gun that will fire with a probability of 50%. So, in one world, a gun fires - the participant in the experiment dies. In another world, the gun misfires and the participant of the experiment lives, which means that the experiment continues.

Regardless of the outcome of events in our world, the participant will still survive (not here, but in a parallel universe). This means that he will always live and he, this guinea pig, is immortal, like all of us.

2. We don't know what death is

We cannot be 100% sure about death because we do not know what life is and what can be called life.

Scientists are trying to come up with a decent and accurate definition of life, but so far they are not very good at it. You can, of course, take the definition of NASA, which are turned on the search for aliens. They say, "Life is a self-sustaining chemical system capable of evolution." But even that doesn't work, because there are sets of non-living chemical systems that can mimic life without being alive. Crystals, for example.

There is also the problem of consciousness. People do not know what consciousness is, what causes it, and how it survives death. Scientists do not know for sure whether consciousness is destroyed with brain death, although they say: "Apparently, it dies with the brain." That is, until we can come up with comprehensive, solid definitions of life, we will never truly understand death.

3. Three types of death

Technically, there is, and moreover, one of the stages is reversible.

It all starts with clinical death - this is the cessation of life, pulse and breathing. The activity of the brain, however, can be preserved. People who have experienced clinical death can be called "technically dead."

This is followed by biological death, sometimes called brain death. Sometimes biological death acts as the opposite of clinical death, as the activity of the brain stops, but the vital functions of the body can still work. From a medical point of view, such a death cannot be reversed.

And finally, there is molecular death, which refers to the stage at which the body finally ceases its struggle against decay. Frankly, few would want death to be reversible at this point, except perhaps director George Romero.

4. Fear of death depends on age

There is a common thought that the closer to death, the more you fear it. The statement, it must be said, is very controversial and is refuted by a number of studies in which it has been found that older people tend to worry less about death than younger people.

The fear of death, according to these studies, is most pronounced at 20 years old, then it goes into a steady decline until the midlife crisis sets in (at which time you can expect a small mental blow), and after that - acceptance, zen and harmony.

However, the study took into account different people at different stages of life, so we cannot be 100% sure that the effect is not due to generational differences. Only time will tell if the current generation of twentysomethings is growing at an alarming rate into a generation of preoccupied retirees.

5. Spiral of death

Great name for a satanic black metal band, don't you think? In general, this term is purely scientific, it denotes the stage preceding death, which is part of the process of genetically programmed death. Its essence is the decline of physical activity.

The death spiral was first described in the study of Drosophila (a type of fly), which stops laying eggs at the moment of death. At the same time, the “spiral” was not a consequence of death, but its predictor.

The human body also has indicators of life, which are daily activities. We eat food, use the toilet daily, brush our teeth and so on. But during the death spiral, the frequency of these actions is significantly reduced.

6. Age restrictions

Over the past century, average life expectancy has increased by decades. However, this has more to do with the fact that most people survive to old age than with the fact that there has been an actual increase in life expectancy. In ancient times, we, as today, can see centennial old people - then few people could be surprised by them. Despite our best efforts, one of the oldest people of our time is just over 120 years old. A lot, we agree, but our head is not spinning from such an age.

It is believed that there is a certain age barrier over which a person is not able to step over. This barrier is called the Hayflick limit. Its essence is to limit cell division. Infinitely the cell cannot divide - it has a limit. This limit varies between organisms, resulting in a hamster with a hell of a short lifespan compared to the Galapagos tortoise. The reason lies in shortened telomeres - sections of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect them from degradation.

It seems that at the moment 120 years is the limit of "natural" human life. That is, even if we give up other causes of death, such as illness, we will still come to a line beyond which people die of "old age". However, if we could find some way to solve the problem of cell division, then perhaps we could extend human life - up to infinity.

By Stevie Shepard

Consciousness continues to exist after death

Most people are so afraid of death that they don't even want to discuss it. This is one of the topics that they talk about in a whisper and with extreme reluctance, not wanting to remember the “gloomy prospect” and focusing on how to live life to the fullest, plunging headlong into all possible pleasures. But ignoring death does not free us from it. At times, especially when we find ourselves in a state of personal crisis, they begin to loom in our minds and make us think about the inevitable.

What frightens us most is not death itself, but the prospect of non-existence, that is, our complete disappearance. The idea of ​​non-existence is so foreign to us that it is difficult to understand it. We are so deeply immersed in the feeling of our own consciousness that we cannot even accept the very thought of its complete loss. The point here is not so much that a person does not want to part with this life, but rather that he does not want to stop feeling himself. Man does not want to stop being.

Many human tragedies and sorrows could have been prevented if the idea of ​​apparent non-existence did not frighten us, if we did not feel the impending hopelessness and seeming hopelessness. In many cases, the thought of the death of a deeply loved person is more painful than the thought of the end of our own consciousness. There is such inexpressible, heartbreaking pain associated with the loss of loved ones, incomparable to any other pain experienced by a person.

At this time, nothing can comfort us. The resulting feeling of extreme devastation and despair sometimes cannot be alleviated either by religious beliefs or by someone's kind words. The cause of despair and devastation is the feeling that this person is irreversibly lost to us, that his or her identity has ceased to exist, that we no longer have any hope of ever sharing with him or her love, joy, and even pain. Religion can give us hope for a future life in a better world, but at the time of death our deepest religious beliefs are presented as fiction, and sometimes we discard them with anger and indignation.

Therefore, when we think about death, we are most concerned with the question: does a person's personality survive after death and what happens to it afterwards. Most of all, we are afraid of losing our innermost thoughts and feelings, the very essence of our being. We are so sure that this will happen that in our life we ​​indulge in a frantic pursuit of life's pleasures, leaving aside its most important moment - the time when we have to experience the most frightening of all experiences.

If we were not so afraid of death, if we knew for sure that our life will continue after the death of the physical body, that our conscious personality will survive and the mind will not cease to exist, we could live with a deeper awareness of the meaning and purpose of life, with gratitude and joy.

We would get rid of the feeling of despair and grief in connection with the loss of loved ones, because we knew that we would certainly meet them in another, wonderful world. We would treat other human beings with love and togetherness and learn to enjoy life more deeply than ever before. In addition, we would prepare for this final journey, try to become better by accepting the experiences of life - both positive and negative - as an enriching experience in the development of our spiritual and personal consciousness. We would have received the greatest gift of all, the gift of hope.

Curiously, there is a wealth of data supporting the idea that our consciousness and personality, having gone through the trauma of death, continue to live. Many scientists believe that this is indeed the case, but are hesitant to express their point of view due to lack of empirical evidence. The very nature of science requires proof for every theory and postulate; for a scientist to make a claim that is not supported by repeated experiments is to put his name and reputation at risk. Therefore, it remains for us to find scientific data ourselves, check them and compare them in order to get convincing, weighty ones. Among the strongest arguments supporting this concept are the laws of nature.

One of the basic laws of nature is the first law of thermodynamics, according to which energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Its form can be changed by physical and chemical processes, but the essence always remains the same. Matter is something that has mass and occupies space and is a form of energy.

A simple example of matter is paper. According to the first law of thermodynamics, if paper is cut into several pieces, then each piece will be considered paper, despite the fact that a physical change has occurred in the matter that we call paper. If the paper is not cut, but burned, its matter is modified through a chemical process of combustion, which will split the paper into different atoms.

These particles escape into the atmosphere, leaving only ashes in our hands. But this does not mean that the energy that formed the paper has been destroyed. The various components of the paper have been dissected, but they continue to exist in our environment, although we do not see them. This particular form of matter cannot be manifested as paper, but all the particles that formed it still exist. Nothing is missing. The matter of paper was not destroyed - it was only transformed.

This is simple knowledge that we acquired in high school. It is not for nothing that they say that our most important questions have simple answers, and this is true of the first law of thermodynamics.

When this law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it refers to the electromagnetic energy that forms the atom and its subatomic particles. The entire universe is permeated with this luminous electromagnetic energy. An atom as such consists of three main particles: a proton, which has a positive electric charge, an electron, which has a negative charge, and a neutron, which has a neutral charge. The proton and neutron are in the nucleus, and the electrons revolve in tiny orbits around the nucleus. The number of electrons and protons in one atom is always the same, and it determines the nature of different elements and different manifestations of energy. Relatively not so long ago, scientists discovered new elementary particles - quarks, which are part of all forms of matter.

We have all heard about the phenomenon of telepathy and clairvoyance. Most people have had this kind of experience at least once in their lives. It has happened to almost everyone that, having thought about someone, he then "accidentally" met this person on the street or this person suddenly called him. There are also so-called "prophetic dreams", when we clearly see some kind of event, which soon happens.

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung theorized that the combined subconscious minds of all mankind form a huge reservoir called the collective unconscious. According to Jung, when people sleep or fall asleep, entering the alpha state, they automatically plunge into the collective unconscious, where they can come into contact with other human minds. It is at this time that a person can meet someone whom he knows on an unconscious level, and thus exchange information. This unconscious exchange underlies one of the explanations for the phenomenon of telepathy and clairvoyance.

When we sleep, our mind moves into a world formed almost entirely from the images of our memory and experience. In this other world, there may also be ancestral memories, which are the experience of fear, passed on to us genetically through our parents. The world of the mind, often identified as , is formed from images and symbols. This world is visual, and, as a rule, we are spectators in it. Everything or almost everything that happens in this world is symbolic. Many of these symbols are personal in nature and have meaning only for the observer. Other images are elements or symbols that have a common meaning for all members of the human community.

Nothing we see, feel, or do in our dreams surprises us. The most incredible experiences, the most impossible situations seem completely normal. Supernatural beings, phantasmagoric forms, strange colors, cataclysms, divine or unpleasant experiences are all part of our dream life, which we perceive as naturally as the experience of living in the material world.

Sometimes, although not very often, we become aware that we are dreaming. This state is known as "lucid dreaming". For the most part, we simply accept our nightly journey into the Astral World, or the world of the mind, as a very real and natural experience. This world of images, where everything is possible and nothing seems strange - the world of pure mind - was considered by the ancients to be the true world of the spirit.

If nature preserves millions of species over millions of years, it is logical to assume that it should also strive to preserve the human mind and its enormous creativity. Such a conclusion can be drawn from the fact that nature preserves what is strong and valuable, and the most valuable thing that has ever developed on this planet is the human mind.

In accordance with these provisions, after we die, the physical body breaks down into basic elements, which are then used by nature in the formation of other life forms. The mind, which is pure electromagnetic energy, having no body and no physical substance, continues to exist in the astral world, where it becomes part of the collective memories and experience of this world.

He is identified with the human spirit, the personality of the individual, and through him we identify ourselves in the world. While the world of matter passes away at our death, the world of the mind - our true essence, into which we sink every night - is the final place of residence, where our consciousness continues to exist after the end of physical life.

In other words, based on the data of science, we can assert that our personality really survives after physical death and continues to live in another world or in another, astral, plane. But how long? Can we make contact with other beings on this plane? Are there angels and spirit guides? What is the experience of death like? Are there ? What's happening ? Are there other worlds or plans? ?

Nothing we can imagine, no matter how fantastical, can even come close to real, breathtaking pictures of the universe. Among the visual material obtained during Voyager's journey through the solar system are photographs of one of the moons of Uranus, Miranda, which show landscapes more fantastic than in any science fiction novel. Mountains of gold criss-crossed by giant fountains of molten metal shooting hundreds of feet into the air have stunned astrophysicists.

Ernst Senkowski is without a doubt the first scientist to devote his time and effort to the phenomenon of communication with dead individuals or with other worlds. World-famous scientists such as G. Marconi and T. Edison once conducted experiments using special equipment in the hope of establishing such contacts.

Ernst showed me photographs taken from a screen showing the image of the late German actress Romy Schneider. It wasn't clear, just an outline, but her features were discernible. It was a fragment of one of her films. One day, during an experiment in Luxembourg, the face of Albert Einstein appeared on the screen in front of a television group. There was no voice, just an image. The members of the group were so shocked that they withdrew from further participation in the experience. Other researchers have reported similar results. Ernst explained to me that no one from the outside could tamper with these transmissions because they came through a closed-circuit television system. These images and voices break through against all logic.

One of the very first faces to appear on the television screen in this way was the face of Konstantin Rodiv, one of the pioneers of the technique of recording otherworldly voices on magnetic tape. His face, like the faces of all dead people that appeared on TV screens, was a vague copy of one of his lifetime photographs. It seemed strange to me, and I asked Ernst why a photograph of a dead person should appear on the screen when he personally tries to establish contact with our world. Why doesn't the real image of this creature appear on the screen?

Ernst replied that the beings themselves explained this by the fact that now they do not have a physical body, that is, there is no physical appearance that could be projected. Therefore, they use their own images captured in photographs during their earthly life. In this way, they try to identify themselves and confirm the fact of the existence of a person's personality after the death of the physical body. Ernst then played a recording of Rodiv where he identifies himself and greets his listeners in a deep, slightly hoarse voice. People who heard these recordings and who knew Rodiv well are convinced that this is his voice.

The spirit, or mind, continues to live after the physical death of a person. In some respects, the world into which a spirit or a disembodied person enters is very similar to the physical world, but the reality there can be changed at will. The spirit can change the environment as if it were made of soft material. This world has two different levels of existence and is described as a combination of many worlds in one.

When the spirit is reborn, it finds itself in the environment that it prepared for itself in its previous life. After the death of the body, the spirit passes to the other side, retaining its consciousness, and there is a completely different logic. When the spirit adapts to this new logic, it is very difficult for it to return to our way of thinking over time. Based on this, we can assume that consciousness there is of a different type, and it is due to a different perception of time, completely different from ours.

People who cross over to the other world are considered multidimensional beings with multidimensional personalities. According to this concept, when a spirit is born again, it can be born in several bodies at the same time. This is possible because every human spirit has multiple dimensions and multiple consciousness. In addition, the spirit experiences all its lives or incarnations as a whole - simultaneously, and not just as one life in one period of time. During transcommunication with a living human being, the spirit specifically uses names and images so that we understand that he remained alive after physical death. But neither the names nor the images have any meaning.

Ernst later expressed his opinion that the best recipients of transcommunications are psychically gifted people. However, he warned that any attempt to make contact with dead or unfamiliar beings, known in science as dynamic information structures, has a potential danger to the psyche. He believes that what he calls a PSI barrier may unwittingly open, which is a natural defense against spiritual or mental "overload".

When this happens, various phantasmagoric visions and voices may appear to the experimenter, which may lead to possession or mental breakdown. Some experimenters share this concern and warn of the dangers of what they call "mediumistic psychosis," in which a person's possession by the spirits of the dead can result in acute schizophrenia.

Therefore, they must be interpreted carefully and methodically. Hearing voices (sometimes similar to the voice of a person during her earthly life), as well as television projections (outwardly similar to her during life) should be considered as projections from, adapted to our sense of reality.

In the words of Ernst Senkowski: "We live in a world of probabilities in which almost everything is possible." With the help of our motivations and emotions, that is, our mind, we are able to influence the possibilities and turn them into probabilities. Everything is interconnected in this integral system; the difference is only in the strength of the conscious consciousness. There is no space and time in the zone of the mind. Life under these conditions consists of information exchange or communication in accordance with the principles of higher resonance. Evolution that overcomes entropy leads to more complex systems through trial and error, through learning and adaptation.

American scientists claim that there is no mysticism behind their research, only science, which, in their opinion, can already take a giant step forward today. In theory. After all, to confirm the theory with practice, that is, to conduct an experiment to revive the brain in the United States, they were strictly forbidden for reasons of medical ethics. NTV correspondent Alla Davydova I tried to find out what is really behind this loud sensation.

The deceased suddenly raises his hand. This can be taken as a miracle, but this phenomenon has a completely scientific name - the Lazarus reflex. Or, for example, after the doctors completed resuscitation, more than 20 minutes passed from the moment the patient was declared dead, and he came to life. There are only 38 cases in the world, but these resurrection stories are the real ones.

Sam Parnia, resuscitator, doctor at Stony Brook University Hospital: “The data obtained to date indicate that human consciousness does not disappear. It remains for several hours after death, albeit in a dormant state that we cannot see from the outside. If we prove that consciousness can exist when the brain is no longer functioning, then the soul is not something magical, it is a scientifically explainable thing.

A very recent scientific sensation - Canadian doctors have recorded the work of the brain after death. After one of the patients was diagnosed with clinical death, which is characterized by the absence of a pulse and pupillary response, delta waves were observed on his electroencephalogram for 10 minutes. And finally, a unique experiment in its audacity.

Ira Pastor, CEO of Bioquark: “Our goal is to bring the brain out of death. If the brain is dead, then it is death, and nothing needs to be done. This definition of death was accepted by us in 1968. All over the world. But today is 2017, and we have a number of modern technologies.”

Biotechnologists from America conceived experiments in India, but at the last moment they were refused, and here is the long-awaited permission - neighboring Latin America is ready to accept ambitious scientists and allocate 20 patients.

Ira Pastor: “We will act on the brain stem to return an independent heartbeat, breathing. And ultimately regenerate brain cells.”

First, the patient will be injected with stem cells and a special synthetic protein, and then the nerve cells will be treated with a laser and electricity.

Academician and professor Gennady Sukhikh treats this still crazy-sounding idea of ​​“resurrection from the dead” with great skepticism.

Gennady Sukhikh: “They want to grow new neurons in the territory of the dead brain and create a neural network. Let them do it. Just let them do it first, and then they start writing about it. For me, this is now madness, this is a good step, but it must be done not on people, but on animals.

But the neuroscientist Frolov is optimistic, he is part of an initiative group of Russian scientists who believe that no later than 2045, an artificial body will surpass the biological one.

And if it really turns out to restore the dead brain cells? This means that completely hopeless patients who have been lying in hospital beds for years with little or no hope will get a very real chance at life.

Anatoly Kondratiev, professor, head of the resuscitation department of the Neurosurgical Institute. Polenova: “We are looking for where some channels have been preserved that can be used for rehabilitation. You see, there are some favorite films here, from cartoons to football programs. This is music, and recorded addresses of loved ones, and some kind of poetry, everything that the patient loved during his lifetime.

Adherents of foreign and Russian cryonics are also waiting for a scientific breakthrough upon their return from the other world. In one cryostat, 10 patients can expect a bright scientific future at once. The closest competitors are only in the USA. But there the price of an entrance ticket to eternal life starts from 100 thousand dollars. Therefore, foreigners who dream of life after death look with hope at Russia, because waiting for the resurrection from the dead in the Russian Federation is much cheaper than in the United States.

Daniil Medvedev, futurologist: “To be cryopreserved is from 12 thousand dollars, if only the brain or head is preserved. And 36,000 if the whole body is preserved.”

If back in 2005, when the first patients were brought to Russia with the hope of defrosting them in the future, it all sounded like someone’s cruel joke, now more and more people are ready to buy a place not in a cemetery, but in cold sarcophagi.

The initiative of American scientists is only the first step hundreds or even thousands of years long, but if everything works out and the resurrection from the dead ceases to resemble Belyaev's fantasy novel, people will finally find out if there is something beyond the fatal line. True, we can only guess when the technologies will be ready and whether humanity will decide on this.

Details are in the video.