Does Mind Survive Physical Death? [this first version is being refereed]

The question whether or not the mind survives the death of the physical body has concerned humankind from earliest times. Interest in survival was the main issue that led to the foundation by a group of Cambridge University scholars of the Society for Psychical Research in Britain in 1882. Currently, materialistic-reductionist science, with its belief that the only reliable knowledge is that gained by the senses about the nature of the physical universe has largely rejected the notion that anything can survive the death of the body. Modern psychology, with its conviction that the brain is the seat of consciousness, and that any idea of a non-material mind or soul that can survive physical death is untenable, strongly supports this materialist-reductionist view. However, the evidence for survival, both indirectly from laboratory studies into the existence of psychic abilities such as telepathy and clairvoyance (which are incompatible with the notion that consciousness is limited to the physical brain), and directly from research into spontaneous cases of apparent post-mortem communications, has continued to grow. Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), in which individuals clinically dead for brief periods nevertheless report the continuation of consciousness) provide further evidence that death may not mean extinction, as does the growing evidence available form ITC research. The discoveries of quantum physics, which suggest that consciousness may be able directly to influence the material world, even provides us with a possible model of how a non-physical mind or soul can interact with and control a physical brain. The present paper reviews some of this evidence and supplements it with findings from the author’s own investigations during his time as President of the Society for Psychical Research and subsequently. The conclusion reached is that, on the balance of probabilities, survival of human 1 consciousness and other life forms appears to be the most likely explanation for the facts under discussion