NP - UC-Riverside Philosopher Will Lead $5-Million Study of Immortality

[David Morris]

http://chronicle.com/article/Intimations-of/133287/


Tuesday the John Templeton Foundation awarded John Martin Fischer, a
philosopher at the University of California at Riverside,  $5-million
for a multidisciplinary investigation of human immortality.

The three-year effort may look at questions like how belief in an
afterlife influences human behavior and how near-death experiences
vary across cultures. In America, for example, many who survive such
events report seeing a tunnel with a light at the end. For Japanese
people, the experiences often involve visions of tending a garden.

The Immortality Project will invite research proposals from
philosophers, theologians, and scientists. Stressing interdisciplinary
projects, it will award grants ranging from $100,000 to $250,000.
There will also be two conferences and a Web site.

"We will not be studying alien-abduction reports and things like
that," says Mr. Fischer, the project's leader. "We're going to do
serious scientific work."