I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon.

There is no scientific explanation for the fact that while my body lay in coma, my mind - my conscious, inner self - was alive and well.

I'm not the first person to have discovered evidence that consciousness exists beyond the body. Brief, wonderful glimpses of this realm are as old as human history.

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

Philosophy was once considered science.

I was not an especially diligent student but nevertheless obtained a reasonable education in physics.

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

If you can slow the biological process of aging, even a minor slowdown in the rate at which we age yields improvements in virtually every condition of frailty and disability and mortality that we see at later ages.