The Afterlife more than likely exists

Afterlife: The state of life existing after the permanent cessation of vital bodily functionsLife: The condtition that distinguishes animate matter from inanimate matterDeath: The permanent cessation of vital bodily functionsWhat is it that distinguishes animate matter from inanimate matter? What is life?You probably learnt in a science lesson when you were small that a being is alive if it can move, reproduce, be sensitive, grow, respire, excrete and is dependent on nutrition. However what if I create a hypotheitical robot that can do al these things. It is possible. Even reproduction could technically be possible with machines although it sounds ridiculous to think about! But all reproduction is is re-producing something like it. It could even grow and respire with artificial lungs. But is this robot alive? It has all the qualities you were taught a living organism needed to be alive however it is not because it is a machine. ConsciousnessSo what differentiates us from this machine? We possess a fundemental attribute- consciousness. The ghost in the machine.You are conscious. You are a thinking being. We know this thanks to Descartes who proved that consciousness is axiomatic. He also had another famous axiom- Cogito ergo sum or I think therefore I am. What he is saying here is that thinking (consciousness/the mind) is what defines being alive. And he was right. Think about it. If you cannot think in any way than you are inanimate. Even simple organisms such as bacteria think in a way although in a very primitive way. All they think about is movement, reproduction and the other attributes associated with life. They are barely conscious. The have no emotions and cannot think about much but none the less they are very slightly. What diffientriates the bacteria an the machine is the bacteria controls itself whereas the machine is controlled externally. When are body shuts doen does our consciousness carry on? Is it part of our body or is it seperate? The latter is an age old question and those who say that consciousness is merely reactions between brain cells are called monists but those who say that consciousness is a seperate metaphysical entity from the physical body are called Dualists or Animists. They say that the mind or soul is not an illusion as Monists claim but very real and made of a non-physical substance. Here is evidence that the mind is seperate from the body. Near Death ExperiencesA case was carried out in the U.K over a period of four years focusing on cardiac arrest patients. 40% of the patients claimed to have possessed consciousness at a time when they were clinically dead and their brain wasn't working at all. After the heart stops beating., the brain shuts down after about 20-30 seconds and the chemicals monists claim are responsible for the illusion of the mind and consciousness were not working yet they claimed to be conscious. Let us not forget that this was not one or two crazy people. This was a vast scientfic survey. So to say that it is not true is too either say that they were all lying or mistaken. So it is highly probable that some were telling the truth. Another notable case was that of a Harvard educated Neurosurgeon called Dr Eben Alexander. Before his experience he was deeply sceptic and very much a man of the physical and one who would reject the metaphysical as spiritual nonsense.In 2008, after contracting severe bacterial meningitis he fell into a deep coma for seven days. His neocortex was completely non-functional and he was incapable of brain activity. What happened afterwards is something of a controversy but Dr Alexander claims to have been to the other side. He described a light spinning closer and closer and opening up. He then described climbing through it into a 'verdant' 'ultra-real' realm before climbing out of that deep hole into the physical realm.Nowhe could have been imagining it but his brain was 100% not functioning or he could have lied but that is very unlikely.Whether or whether not this event is true or not there is even more compelling evidence.Many people have claimed to have had out of body experiences (OBEs) however what is really fascinating is that some have been verified.For example one case in 1991 was a simger, Pam Reynolds who had developed an aneurysm. She went for a risky surgical procedure hypothermic cardiac arrest. She reporting hearing the note D natural whilst 'popping' outside her body. The tone becoming clearer the further outside her body she was. When she was outside her body her vision was brighter, clearer and more focused and she was looking down as the doctor drove a saw into her skull. She ooked on for days as she saw friends and family come in and the syrgeons talking about her for example a woman by her groin saying that "Her arteries are too small." When she finally awoke she explained everything that had happened from the perspective of looking down. She described what people said and did and which guests came in on which days and what they did as well. This is just one example of a verified OBE. There was another case where a man described himself looking across the room in the corner of the room at doctors and his own body. He too described what he saw. Dr Sam Parnia who previously described NDEs and OBEs as hallucinatory said his information as "very credible.""The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experience lasted for," Parnia also said.Parnia's further studies included 2,060 patients. 55% claimed to have had OBEs. Many of which were also verified.The probability of all them lying or being mistaken would be a possibility but due to the verification of OBEs, it looks like they were telling the truth.Sources-http://www.independent.co.uk...http://listverse.com...http://www.near-death.com...http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com...http://www.telegraph.co.uk...