Sam Parnia’s book *Erasing Death* is simply blowing my mind. Our species is beginning its first scientific exploration into what happens to consciousness after we die. Through resuscitation medicine, we can now bring people who have died back, after they have progressed hours into the death process. (Death being defined as cardiac arrest, no respiration, and fixed dilated pupils.) As our science in this area advances in the future, we’ll be able to bring people back who have gone farther and farther into the death process. It’s amazing that we’ll actually be able to scientifically study the process of death—this has to be the fascinating science ever! It seems that our religions may arise from a collective memory of what happens to us after we die, from multiple perspectives and interpretations, and that there may be an interplay between biological evolution and reincarnation, where a subtle quantum “spirit” structures evolve with biology over time. Perhaps, eventually, we’ll not only come to understand what happens to us after we die, but to build technologies that allow for communication and transportation between the realms of life and death.

David Jay Brown (via prometheanreach)