What happens when I die?
A Physical Examination of the Afterlife and Reincarnation!

If you know that death is not the end but the beginning of the next life
You will choose a noble life, not a life of momentary desire!

What happens when I die? Does reincarnation really exist? Are stories about the afterlife just fantasy or fiction? Death and reincarnation have long fascinated humanity.
In modern times, this topic has been dealt with around the concept of 'Near Death Experience', and many interesting scientific research results have been obtained.
Science has begun to focus on what happens after death, which had been primarily discussed in the realms of religion and philosophy.
The mainstream modern academic position on death and reincarnation is based on a materialistic view of life and death.
The view is that there is no life after death, because consciousness disappears when the body ceases activity.
Modern people who have been educated in this way may want to dismiss near-death experiences and reincarnation as mere delusions.
However, objectively verified experiences of near-death experiencers and past-life memory holders demonstrate the possibility of an afterlife and reincarnation.
Could it be that ignoring the truth right before our eyes is actually unscientific and irrational? And if we cling to such an attitude, won't we miss the profound lessons death offers us?

??What happens after death that science is paying attention to?? starts from this very question.
This book introduces various cases collected to date regarding near-death experiences and reincarnation, and examines the fierce debate surrounding the interpretation of these cases from a scientific perspective.
After such reflections, physicist and author Professor Kim Seong-gu acknowledges the possibility that the afterlife and reincarnation are true.
The author also emphasizes that modern physics' understanding of existence and the world has some overlap with the Buddhist concept of reincarnation without self.
Through these connections, readers will be able to shed new light on the meaning of death and reincarnation through the two languages ​​of science and Buddhism.

If there is an afterlife, our attitude towards life will change greatly.
If it is a universal law that I will eventually reap what I sow, and if we realize that fact, everyone will strive to live righteously.
This book presents the arguments of two groups of experts with opposing views on near-death experiences and reincarnation, allowing the general reader to decide for themselves which of these two claims is more valid.

--- p.6~7

Near-death experiences are experiences that people who were medically declared dead but then survived say they had just before death.
In many cases, near-death experiencers claim to have experienced the afterlife.
Near-death experiences themselves are a problem that everyone acknowledges.
The experiencer cannot deny what he or she experienced.
The crux of the problem is how to explain the out-of-body experience (OBE) or the afterlife that the experiencer claims to have experienced.
If it is proven that a near-death experiencer can discover some secret information that ordinary people cannot know through out-of-body experience, this one case will prove that human consciousness operates outside the brain.
And if what people who claim to remember past lives say is scientifically proven to be accurate, then 'life after death' will be proven to be true.
--- p.19

Scientists who support a non-materialist view of life and death see the current debate over life and death in brain and neuroscience as being in a similar situation to the birth of quantum mechanics.
The idea that life continues after death seems impossible from the perspective of human perception, like a quantum phenomenon.
However, these people believe that we should stick to scientific data rather than the scientific belief that 'brain state = mind'.
The 'scientific data' referred to here is the testimony of people who have had near-death experiences or who remember past lives.
Scientists who support a non-materialistic view of life and death believe that although the cases of near-death experiences already reported in the academic world sufficiently support the existence of an afterlife, those who cannot escape the scientific belief that 'brain state = mind' are unable to acknowledge the existence of an afterlife.
--- p.22~23

Because near-death experiences are subjective experiences, there is no way to objectively confirm the content of the experience; it can only be known through the patient's statement.
When people think of near-death experiences, they think of pseudoscience or superstition because of the afterlife and out-of-body experiences, but near-death experiences themselves are a phenomenon that the scientific community cannot help but acknowledge and accept.
--- p.35

In a 2019 interview, Dr. Rommel said the commonly held medical definition of consciousness needs to be reexamined.
All the patients he reviewed were conscious, emotionally alert, cognitively sharp and had vivid memories even when their brains were not functioning.
Dr. Rommel said that he thought consciousness was not confined to the brain.
--- p.83

Dr. Cannon also initially denied the soul and reincarnation from a scientific standpoint.
However, when we tried to induce age regression using hypnosis, we unexpectedly found that people often experienced past lives.
Canon then investigated what the test subjects had to say to the best of his ability.
As a result, Dr. Cannon concluded that although he did not know the details of their personal history, the historical facts they recounted were all correct in the grand scheme of things.
--- p.164

From a physical perspective, the things of the world ultimately refer to existence and events.
There are two perspectives on understanding this world of beings and events.
One is a worldview that believes that the basis of things is existence, and that this existence causes events.
This can be called an ontological worldview, and the classical mechanical worldview corresponds to this.
Another is the worldview that, as explained above, sees events as the basis of things and that these events create existence.
This can be called an event-centered worldview, which is the worldview of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity.
--- p.283

If everything is a process, there can be no substance, only a 'flow of events' according to the changing relationships between things.
If so, then the birth and death of existence cannot have existed from the beginning.
There is only one process, a causally connected change.
Even tin cans and stones are ultimately just a process of slow change.
--- p.286

If we accept reincarnation, the ‘flow of events’ called ‘life’ does not end with the ‘event’ called ‘death.’
The whole of 'life and death' is one process that repeats endlessly.
There is no identity in this process, but there is continuity.
When we apply the fact that 'there is no identity but continuity' to a finite time, it becomes 'anatta', and when we apply it to the entire process of 'life and death' repetition, it becomes 'anatta reincarnation'.
--- p.288

Even as the horizons of science expand, if we fail to realize that mind and matter are one, things will still appear the same as they did before the horizons of science expanded.
This is an example of how we feel about the Earth being flat even though we know it is round.
But even if the world seems the same, if we realize that there is an endless world beyond our Umwelt, our attitude toward life will change.

--- p.367