A Science of the impossible 

In this three-session series I will address a major triad of paradigm-shattering questions in current consciousness science: whether minds do really extend beyond brains, whether something of us survives our permanent bodily death, and whether alien intelligences exist here and now amongst us.

I will, of course, try to do that with rigour but also with the openness, imagination and humour necessary to, at least, entertain such foundational questions —deemed nonsensical (and dogmatically answered in the negative) by most of my academic colleagues—, evaluating the available empirical data and theoretical frameworks to perhaps start endorsing some provisional answers in the positive.

For each topic I will offer three valuable sides, not often found together. First, I will review the existing evidence and ideas that make these hypotheses possible in principle and in practice. Second (and that is unique to this series), I will share my own personal “impossible experiences” for each of the three major points. Third, I will also share my ongoing attempts to scientifically investigate these three main questions, telling some backstage science that is not typically found in publications or podcasts. It will be a ride of courage and vulnerability — an awkward combination of expertise, experience, and experiment.

For Question 1, I will concentrate on non-local perception, specifically “remote viewing” and “seeing without eyes”, both in sighted and blind people. For Question 2, I will dive into end-of-life phenomena such as “near-death experiences” and “terminal lucidity”, but also zoom out to post-mortem and pre-birth ways of being without a body. For Question 3, I will seek disclosure one experiment at a time…

 I am not a professor waiting for retirement in order to come out of the closet, a dogmatic skeptic who already knows the answer from their blogging chair, nor a candid believer who has seen the light and looks for the stamp of science but not its spade. Each session would be an informed rant about the impossible followed by Q&A where you can really ask me anything.

At the end of the day we shall appreciate that materialism is probably the most dangerous pseudoscience that humanity has had to endure and we will hopefully envision a future where mind and matter find their proper place in the world (and in us) at last.