Theory of the Dead’s Mind: Does the Mind of the Dead Transcend Time and Space?

Abstract

Current neuroscience views the mind-body problem from the monistic perspective which claims that the human mind is the result of brain activity and that the mind shuts down when the brain does. However, a considerable number of lay people still believe in the existence of the soul and the afterlife, concepts that are hard to explain from the monistic perspective. This study examines whether lay people think that the mind of the dead is capable of exceeding the physical constraints if they believe that such mind exists. After reading one of three vignettes which describes the state of the protagonist as alive, dead, or brain dead, the participants evaluated the protagonist's general mental capacity and transcendental ability to obtain new information. The participants rated that the dead protagonist had more ‘transcendental ability to obtain new information’ than the alive one if they evaluated high general mental capacity to the protagonist. In addition, unlike the alive condition, in the dead and the brain dead condition, there was a correlation between the general mind capacity rating and the transcendental ability rating. The results suggest that lay people expect the mind of the alive and the dead to be different, as they believe the latter’s general mind capacity connotes transcendental ability. We also found that the participants' religiosity affected their beliefs about the transcendental ability of dead person.