Comments on “Is Biological Death Final? Recomputing the Drake-S Equation for Postmortem Survival of Consciousness”

Abstract

The application of the Drake-S equation to the aggregated data suggestive of survival found 30.3% of unexplained variance in the data when other factors were applied to the dataset (including living agent psi, LAP). A number of points are raised in this commentary. These include 1. the aggregated estimate for LAP should factor in implicit psi studies (among others); 2. it is difficult to ascertain the source of psi if psi is not a signal that is caused, but rather an emergent property of a connected system; 3. there may be shared variance between sources that are attributed differently in the equation 4. different sources of evidence for survival are heterogeneous and 5. The attribution of unexplained variance to survival of consciousness is critiqued. Even if it cannot resolve the debate concerning postmortem survival of consciousness, this approach redirects serious academic attention to the study of death and dying.