What Happens When We Die?

Attitudes towards an afterlife/reincarnation vary a great deal and even science is now beginning take a serious look. In a recent Time Magazine interview, Dr. Sam Parnia of the Weill Cornel Medical Center answers questions about his latest study, called "AWARE" (AWAreness during Resuscitation). The 3-year study will make detailed investigations into this phenomena.

Something I particularly liked was Dr. Parnia's explanation of the need for these kinds of experiments:

...When we look at the world around us, Newtonian physics is perfectly sufficient. It explains most things that we deal with. But then it was discovered that actually when you look at motion at really small levels — beyond the level of the atoms — Newton's laws no longer apply. A new physics was needed, hence, we eventually ended up with quantum physics. It caused a lot of controversy — even Einstein himself didn't believe in it. Now, if you look at the mind, consciousness, and the brain, the assumption that the mind and brain are the same thing is fine for most circumstances, because in 99% of circumstances we can't separate the mind and brain; they work at the exactly the same time. But then there are certain extreme examples, like when the brain shuts down, that we see that this assumption may no longer seem to hold true. So a new science is needed in the same way that we had to have a new quantum physics...