Most people believe in an afterlife, or that their personal sense of self will continue on after their physical body dies. In fact, a belief in some sort of afterlife has persisted throughout history and across all cultures.
Substantial anecdotal and several types of experimental evidence suggest that some aspect of consciousness does survive bodily death. However, the evidence is far from being scientifically conclusive, and it is not given due consideration as often as it should be in academic settings.
But, do academic professionals personally believe in the continuation of human consciousness? We tend to think that people who work in academic environments lean more toward skepticism, but is that actually true? If so, what kind of experiment could convince them that human consciousness can survive death? Non-believers would probably require substantial empirical evidence to flip their skepticism. That’s what we set out to explore in our newly published paper.
