A scientist has shared his thoughts on life after death - concluding that there is "no way for the soul to survive" once we have passed away.
Through religious and spiritual beliefs, the question of whether or not there is life after death is one that has spanned millennia. However, due to the nature of life, it really is scientifically impossible to determine whether or not an afterlife exists.
There have been countless reports of people who have medically died and claimed to have "crossed over", but proving them to be factual is unfeasable.
For example, after slipping into a coma in February 2006 amid a battle with lymphoma, public speaker Anita Moorjani told Today back in 2015 that she did experience life after death, saying: "I believe that I died, yes — that I crossed over into the afterlife and back."
Moorjani added: "I felt as though I was above my body. It was like I had 360-degree peripheral vision of the whole area around. But not just in the room where my body was in, but beyond the room."
Recalling her story, she even says that she reunited with her late father and "felt so incredible", with her pain gone.
Stories like Moorjani's can be found in countless books and online articles, but one scientist has claimed that an afterlife is impossible - and it is all down to physics.
Sean Carroll, an American cosmologist and theoretical physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, has spent much of his career studying the laws of physics.
In 2011, Carroll wrote in Scientific American that humans "know better for life after death, although people are much more reluctant to admit it."
As a physicist, Carroll believes that the only cases that support life after death come from "a few legends and sketchy claims from unreliable witnesses with near-death experiences, plus a bucketload of wishful thinking."
Explaining that the laws of death must also follow the laws of life, Carroll adds:
"Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die.
"If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?"
Finally, he adds: "If it's really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death. Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model."
Despite Carroll's article, I'm sure the people of the world will continue to live believing what they choose to believe.
After all... Nobody really knows, do they?
