Even in modern secular societies, belief in an afterlife persists. Why?
Even in modern secular societies, there’s a persistent belief that death may not be the end of something resembling a conscious human experience. So what has kept the idea of an ‘afterlife’ churning throughout human history? Featuring insights from the frontiers of evolutionary psychology, philosophy and a healthy dose of gallows humour, this short from BBC Reel sets out to understand why, starting from a young age, we seem to be so eager to project consciousness beyond its apparent end. Further, the video investigates whether the contemporary notion that we could potentially upload our ‘selves’ to become immortal is based on science or is just another expression of our seemingly immortal desire to outlive death.
videoChildhood and adolescence
‘Do worms cry?’ – and other questions collected from the mind of a curious child
4 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
videoSpirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world
10 minutes
videoEvolution
How – and how not – to think about the role randomness plays in evolution
60 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
A Japanese religious community makes an unlikely home in the mountains of Colorado
9 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
‘Everydayness is the enemy’ – excerpts from the existentialist novel ‘The Moviegoer’
2 minutes
videoBiology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes