We live in an age when many scientists still clumsily reduce the mind to nothing more than neurochemical activity, namely, the mere interactions of neurons and neurotransmitters. Such scientists often react with hostility at even the suggestion that substance dualism might be true. Therefore, it is refreshing to witness the person with the world’s highest recorded IQ affirm what theologians, philosophers, and mystics have long understood: that consciousness cannot be reduced to mere matter.
For over a century, prodigies like William James Sidis, whose estimated IQ approached 300, captivated the public imagination but left the deepest questions of life, matter, and mind unanswered. Today, Dr. YoungHoon Kim, whose IQ is reportedly verified at 276 and who holds a bachelor’s degree in theology (perhaps proof that the most intelligent begin with first things), recorded a message three months ago that has since gone viral on and other platforms, declaring: “Our consciousness continues beyond death, definitely.”
Kim has studied various subjects, including psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, and theology. He has also received honorary doctorates in cognitive science, education, and psychology and held research positions at both Cambridge and Yale. This interdisciplinary approach has equipped him well to reflect deeply on the subjects of quantum information, consciousness, the afterlife, and God.
Unlike evolutionary biological models such as neo-Darwinism, which are often accompanied by the philosophical assumption held by many of their adherents (though not logically required by the theory itself) that consciousness ceases entirely once brain function stops, Dr. Kim appeals to quantum physics to argue that information never truly disappears but only changes form. He suggests that if consciousness is a kind of quantum information, it may persist beyond the death of the body, much like data stored in “the cloud.”
It is important to note that information is not bound to a single material medium. It can transfer across various substrates such as a USB key, hard drive, book, or brain without necessarily losing the essential informational content. Even when the material substrate is destroyed, the information it holds can persist. Since the revolutionary work of James Watson and Francis Crick in identifying the structure of DNA, it has become increasingly evident that biology is fundamentally governed by information systems.
This growing recognition of information’s primacy in biology has been a central focus of the Intelligent Design movement. Proponents of Intelligent Design, including William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, and Michael Behe, have increasingly highlighted the challenge that information theory presents to reductionist biology. This challenge has also been acknowledged by philosopher Thomas Nagel in Mind and Cosmos, where he argues that the materialist framework is fundamentally inadequate for explaining the origin of life and the emergence of consciousness.
More importantly, Kim’s public witness does not stop at quantum speculation. In a world that idolizes IQ tests and technocratic expertise, he openly confesses what so many refuse to say aloud: that Jesus Christ is divine. On , where his words reached millions, he declared, “As the world’s highest IQ record holder, I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the way and the truth and the life.” In our day and age, to witness the world’s highest IQ holder publicly and willingly bend the knee to Jesus, an itinerant carpenter from the first century, is a stunning feat that surpasses any viral claim about quantum information or the reality of the afterlife, especially given our culture’s mistaken association of high intelligence with skepticism and nonbelief.
In my own writings, particularly in my book On the Origin of Consciousness and in one of my presentations for the 2020 Science of Consciousness conference, “AI, the Nature of Consciousness, Information, Reality and the Possibility of the Afterlife,” I have argued that materialist accounts of the mind are philosophically inadequate and can be rendered scientifically obsolete. If the mind is merely a by-product of electrochemical signals, then human freedom is an illusion, and so is any hope for meaning that transcends our brief biological existence. It is worth noting that over the past one hundred years, philosophical developments in the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of mind—as well as scientific developments in the fields of cosmology, evolutionary biology, chemical evolution, and neuroscience—have increasingly pointed away from the scientific materialist paradigm.
Dr. Kim’s thought and public profession of faith align closely with the central trajectory of my own research. In my presentation at the 2020 Science of Consciousness conference, I argued that recent developments in artificial intelligence, information theory, and quantum physics have brought the question of the afterlife back into legitimate scientific and philosophical discourse. Kim’s analogy to quantum entanglement and the “cloud” strikingly parallels what I have long maintained: that information, in its most meaningful and structured forms, presupposes intention and is often indicative of mind. Quantum entanglement refers to a phenomenon in which two or more particles become linked so that, regardless of the distance separating them, the change in one simultaneously affects the other.
This broader metaphysical resonance is not unique to Kim. Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku has analogized the multiverse to numerous radio stations occupying the same space, each broadcasting on a different frequency. The implication of this comparison is that even though we perceive only one reality, others may coexist beyond our current perception. This “tuning” metaphor, like Kim’s “cloud” analogy, opens the conceptual space for consciousness to endure across dimensions not subject to physical decay once freed from the body.
Kim points out that quantum mechanics teaches that information never truly disappears but changes form. This aligns with the orchestrated objective reduction (Orch OR) theory developed by mathematical physicist Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, which I discuss in my research. If consciousness emerges from quantum processes within the microtubules of neurons, it is plausible that it can persist beyond the dissolution of the brain. In other words, the self may survive the body’s decay by virtue of the deeper informational order inscribed into reality by the Creator.
If true, this insight refutes the most reductionist strands of scientific materialism. Even many atheists and futurists now toy with mind uploading or transhumanist hopes to escape death digitally. As I pointed out in my presentation, such visions wrestle with severe philosophical problems of identity and continuity. A digital copy is not you, just as a photograph is not a person. Yet Kim’s quantum perspective points to a better answer: consciousness as a unified, immaterial reality, grounded not in data storage devices and servers but in the very structure of the created order.
In Kim’s viral video, he provides a profound yet simple analogy of a video game avatar, whereby an avatar may disappear from the screen but the player persists. This example conveys a deep theological truth and the possibility that the soul survives physical death and can await the future resurrection, much like the empty tomb of Christ provides the historical context for this possibility.
