Consciousness persists after death and 9 more facts about the afterlife

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Bony with a scythe is a classic image of death in Western culture, but far from the only one. Ancient societies represented death in many ways. Modern science has depersonalized death, tore away the veil of secrecy from it and discovered a complex picture of biological and physical processes that separate the living from the dead. But why study the experience of death at all if there is still no turning back?

If you don’t want to hear about death, then consider this article an uninvited clue.

• For centuries, different cultures have humanized death in order to give the incomprehensible familiar features.
• Modern science has torn the veil of secrecy from death, having comprehended a number of biological processes, but many questions remain unsolved.
• The science of death is not a painful reminder of the cruelty of fate, but a way to improve the condition of the living.

Black cloak. Grinning skull. Bony with a scythe is a classic image of death in Western culture, but far from the only one. Ancient societies represented death in many ways. The Greeks had a winged Thanatos that cut off a lock of hair, releasing the soul from the body. Among the Scandinavians, Hel is a recluse, gloomy and unsociable. And among the Hindus - the god of death Yama in bright clothes.

Modern science has depersonalized death, tore away the veil of secrecy from it and discovered a complex picture of biological and physical processes that separate the living from the dead. But thanks to these discoveries, death, in a sense, has become more alien to us.

1) Consciousness persists after death

Many of us imagine death as a kind of dream. The head is filled with weight. The eyelids twitch and close gently. The last breath - and everything turns off. It's even pleasant in its own way. Alas, this is too good to be true.

Dr. Sam Parnia, head of the intensive care unit at New York University's Langon Medical Center, has a long history of studying death. He came to the conclusion that consciousness persists for some time after death. The cerebral cortex - the thinking part of it - emits waves for about 20 seconds after death.

Studies in laboratory rats have shown an increase in brain activity immediately after death, resulting in an agitated and hyper-alert state. If such conditions occur in humans, it proves that the brain remains fully conscious in the early stages of death. It also explains why clinical death survivors sometimes remember what happened when they were technically dead.

But why study the experience of death at all if there is still no turning back?

“In the same way that researchers study the qualitative nature of love and its accompanying experience, we try to understand what exactly people experience at the moment of death. We believe that these sensations will inevitably touch everyone,”Parnia said in an interview with LiveScience.

2) Zombies do exist (or something like that)

Recently, the Yale School of Medicine obtained 32 pig brains from a nearby slaughterhouse. No, not at all for intimidation and mafia showdowns. Scientists were going to resurrect them physiologically.

The researchers connected their brains to a perfusion system called painEx. A solution of artificial blood flowed along it to inactive tissues, and with it - oxygen and nutrients.

Brains not only "came to life", but some of their cells worked for another 36 hours. They consumed and assimilated sugar. Even the immune system is working. And some even transmitted electrical signals.

Since the scientists were not going to shoot "Animal Farm" (we are talking about the adaptation of the novel of the same name by J. Orwell - ed.) With zombies, they injected chemicals into the solution that suppress the activity of neurons - that is, consciousness.

Their real goal was this: to develop technology that will help to study the brain and its cellular functions longer and more thoroughly. And this, in turn, will improve the methods of treating brain injuries and degenerative diseases of the nervous system.

3) For some parts of the body, death is far from the end

There is life after death. No, science has not found evidence of an afterlife. And how much the soul weighs, I also did not find out. But our genes live on even after we die.

The study, published in the Royal Society's Open Biology, examined gene expression from dead mice and zebrafish. The researchers did not know if it declined gradually or stopped immediately. And the results amazed them. More than a thousand genes were activated after death, and in some cases the period of activity lasted up to four days.

"We didn't expect the same," Peter Noble, study author and professor of microbiology at the University of Washington, told Newsweek. “Can you imagine: you take a sample 24 hours after death, and the number of transcripts took and increased? This is a surprise."

Expression concerned stress and immunity, as well as developmental genes. According to Noble and his coauthors, this implies that the body “shuts down in stages,” that is, vertebrates die gradually, rather than simultaneously.

4) Energy remains even after death

But even our genes will eventually disappear, and we ourselves will turn to dust. Are you not also discouraged by the prospect of oblivion? Here you are not alone, but let the fact that a part of you after death will live for a long time be comforted. This is your energy.

According to the first law of thermodynamics, the energy that feeds life is conserved and cannot be destroyed. She is simply reborn. As comedian and physicist Aaron Freeman explained in his Dirge from a Physicist: “Let the physicist remind your weeping mother of the first law of thermodynamics that energy in the universe is not created or destroyed. Let your mother know that all your energy, every vibration, every British unit of warmth, every wave of every particle - everything that was once her favorite child - will remain with her in this world. Let the physicist tell the crying father that in terms of the energy of the cosmos, you have given exactly the same amount as you received."

5) Perhaps clinical death is just a vision of extraordinary power

Experiences with near-death experiences vary. Some say they leave the body. Others go to some other world, where they meet deceased relatives. Still others fall into a classic plot with a light at the end of the tunnel. One thing unites them: what is really happening, we cannot say for sure.

As a study published in the journal Neurology suggests, near-term death is a state that borders wakefulness and sleep. Scientists have compared clinical death survivors with ordinary people, and found that they are more likely to fall into a state of paradoxical sleep, when sleep interferes with waking consciousness.

"It is possible that in those who have experienced clinical death, the nervous system is excited in a special way, and this is a kind of predisposition to sleep with rapid eye movement," Kevin Nelson, a professor at the University of Kentucky, told the BBC. lead author of the study.

It should be noted that research has its limitations. In each group, only 55 participants were interviewed, and conclusions were made on the basis of circumstantial evidence. This is the fundamental difficulty in the study of clinical death. Such experiences are extremely rare and cannot be replicated in a laboratory setting. (And no ethical advice would go along with that.)

As a result, we have only fragmentary data, and they can be interpreted in different ways. But it is unlikely that the soul goes for a walk after death. In one experiment, various photographs were placed on high shelves in 1,000 hospital wards. These images would be seen by one whose soul left the body and returned.

But none of those who survived cardiac arrest saw them. So even if their souls really left their bodily prisons, they had better things to do.

6) even animals mourn the dead

We are not yet sure about this, but eyewitnesses say that it is.

Members of the expeditions saw the elephants stop to "say goodbye" to the dead - even if the deceased was from a different herd. This prompted them to conclude that elephants have a "generalized response" to death. Dolphins say goodbye to their dead comrades. And chimpanzees have a number of rituals around the dead, for example, grooming their hair.

Funeral rituals similar to human ones have not been seen in the wild - this requires abstract thinking - but this behavior still indicates that animals are aware of death and react to it.

As Jason Goldman of the BBC writes: “For every aspect of our life that is unique to our species, there are hundreds, which are also found in the animal kingdom. It is not worth giving animals human feelings, but it is important to remember that we ourselves are animals in our own way."

7) Who invented to bury the dead?

Anthropologist Donald Brown has discovered hundreds of similarities in his study of cultures. However, each culture has its own way of honoring and mourning the dead.

But who thought of this first? Humans or earlier hominids? The answer to this question is not easy to find - it is lost in the gray fog of antiquity. However, we have a candidate - and this is Homo naledi.

The fossilized remains of this human fossil were found in the Rising Star Cave in the Cradle of Humanity in South Africa. There is a vertical manhole and several "skinners" leading into the cave - you will have to crawl in order.

The researchers suspected that all these people were there for a reason. They ruled out the likelihood of a collapse or other natural disaster. It seemed that this was intentional, and the scientists concluded that the cave served as a homo ice graveyard. Not everyone agrees with them, and more research is needed to answer this question unambiguously.

8) Living corpse

For most of us, the line between life and death is clear. The person is either alive or dead. For many, this goes without saying, and one can only rejoice that there are no doubts on this score.

People with Cotard's syndrome do not see this difference. This rare insanity was described in 1882 by Dr. Jules Cotard. Patients claim that they have been dead for a long time, that they are missing body parts or that they have lost their soul. This niligistic delirium is expressed in a sense of despair and hopelessness - patients neglect their health, and it is difficult for them to adequately perceive objective reality.

One 53-year-old Filipino claimed that she smelled of rotten fish and demanded to be taken to the morgue, to “her friends”. Fortunately, a combination of antipsychotics and antidepressants helped her. With the right medication, this severe mental disorder is known to be treatable.

9) Is it true that hair and nails grow even after death?

Not true. This is a myth, but it has a biological explanation.

After death, hair and nails cannot grow because new cells stop appearing. Cell division feeds glucose, and cells need oxygen to break it down. After death, both of them cease to enroll.

Water is also not supplied, which leads to dehydration of the body. And when the skin of the corpse dries up, it comes off the nails - and they seem longer - and pulls together around the face (this makes it seem like a stubble has grown on the chin of the corpse). Those unfortunate enough to exhume corpses might mistake these changes for signs of growth.

It is curious that the posthumous "growth" of hair and nails gave rise to tales of vampires and other nocturnal creatures. When our ancestors dug up fresh corpses and discovered stubble and blood stains around the mouth (the result of natural accumulation of blood), of course, they vividly imagined ghouls.

Today this prospect does not threaten anyone. (Unless, of course, you donate your brain to the Yale School of Medicine.)

10) Why are we dying?

People who have passed 110 years are called super-long-livers - and they are very rare. Those who have lived to be 120 are completely negligible. The French woman Jeanne Calment remains the oldest person in history - she lived for 122 years.

But why are we dying at all? Spiritual and existential explanations aside, the simplest answer is that after a moment, nature itself gets rid of us.

From an evolutionary point of view, the meaning of life is to pass on your genes to offspring. Therefore, most species die shortly after breeding. So, salmon die immediately after spawning, so for them this is a one-way ticket.

With humans, things are a little different. We invest more in children, so we have to live longer to care for our offspring. But human life is far beyond reproductive age. This allows us to invest time and energy in raising grandchildren (who also carry our genes). This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the “grandmother effect”.

But if grandparents bring so much benefit, then why is the limit set at more than a hundred years? Because our evolution is not designed for more. Nerve cells don't multiply, the brain dries up, the heart weakens, and we die. If evolution needed us to stay longer, the "switches" would not work. But, as we know, evolution requires death in order to maintain and develop a mechanism of adaptation.

Sooner or later, our children will become grandparents themselves, and our genes will be passed on to subsequent generations.