The terms afterlife, life after death, and hereafter refer to the supposed continuation of the soul, spirit or mind of a being after physical death. The major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics. In many popular views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual or immaterial realm. Deceased persons are usually believed to go to a specific realm or plane of existence after death, usually determined by their actions during life. By contrast, the term reincarnation refers to an afterlife that is a continuation of physical life in this world.
Those who are skeptical of the existence of the afterlife may believe that it is absolutely impossible, such as the materialist-reductionists, who state that the topic is supernatural, and therefore either does not exist or is unknowable.
