Debate: 'Death is not Final' Robert Rosenkranz Introduction

Robert Rosenkranz, Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates Chairman, opens the debate "Death is Not Final" for Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates. Recorded live for broadcast on NPR and PBS.

Description from IQ2US:
If consciousness is just the workings of neurons and synapses, how do we explain the phenomenon of near-death experience? By some accounts, about 3% of the U.S. population has had one: an out-of-body experience often characterized by remarkable visions and feelings of peace and joy, all while the physical body is close to death. To skeptics, there are more plausible, natural explanations, like oxygen deprivation. Is the prospect of an existence after death “real” and provable by science, or a construct of wishful thinking about our own mortality?

Featuring the following debate teams:

For the Motion:

Dr. Eben Alexander,
Neurosurgeon & Author, Proof of Heaven

Dr. Raymond Moody, Medical Doctor & Author, Life After Life

Against the motion
Dr. Steven Novella,
Academic Neurologist, Yale School of Medicine

Sean Carroll,
Physicist & Writer

Moderator:
John Donvan
Author & Correspondent for ABC News

Watch the full debate: