The Truth About Life after Death

After contributing so many pieces on the ways of the flesh to this site, I thought I might contribute at least one piece of the ways of the soul to provide some balance. (This subject is what I focus on my other life.)

Do you survive the death of the physical body? That depends on what you are. You may not be what you think you are. You, like Scrooge, may need to awaken from three dreams.

The Dream of Matter

You are born into the world as a blob of protoplasm, the astronomically improbable result of a random recombination of genes and the confluence of an infinity of random events. Had just one or two of these billions of random events had a different outcome, you would in all likelihood never have been born. Your very existence could not be more improbable.

You are nothing but your body and brain. Your inner self, your aspirations and strivings, your deepest emotions, and innermost thoughts are nothing more electrical discharges and chemical secretions in the wetware of your brain. When that brain and body are gone, decomposed once more into their constituent elements, dispersed back into the Mother Earth, and finding new homes in her countless new creatures, plants and minerals, you will be no more. Aside from your works, influences on others, and the continuation of the all the myriad other causal chains in which you once participated, it will be as though you never existed.

Such is the dream of modern science and indeed of many modern enlightened religions that, perhaps prematurely, have rushed to embrace the materialist worldview of modern science, not wanting to be left behind in the dark ages from which they sprang.

Awakening From the Dream of Matter

Based on the physicalistic worldview of modern science, one's self is nothing more than one's physical body, and the physical world is all that exists. We are identical to our physical bodies, our selves nothing more than the electrochemical activity of billions of neurons housed in calcium skulls. In the view of modern science, the world/universe is comprised of a collection of blindly careening elementary and not-so-elementary particles, a spacetime stage for them to perform their antics in, and little else. The behavior of these material particles is governed by the mathematical laws of physics and nothing more.

But, if each of us does have a self that endures from moment to moment, from day to day, and year to year (however much it may be extinguished at death), then that self cannot be identical with any specified collection of material particles. The material particles that make up our bodies are constantly changing. Atoms and molecules are continually entering into and exiting from your body, so that the collection of material particles that comprises your body of today is a completely different assemblage of material particles from that which comprised your body of several years ago. For instance, Burruss (2006) computes that some of the atoms in your body were part of the sun only months ago, having been driven to Earth by the solar wind, and that hydrogen atoms that were a part of your body only months ago have exited from the Earth's atmosphere and are on a course toward interstellar space. Yet you perceive that you are the same self you were several months ago. If this perception is correct, then you cannot be identical to any particular collection of material particles, including your present physical body.

If each of us is identical with his or her physical body, it is most surprising that we would find ourselves conscious at the present moment of time. A human lifespan is only several decades long. On the other hand, the universe has existed for approximately 13.7 billion years and will likely exist for billions more to come (to say nothing of the age of any "multiverse," of which the universe may be only a part). Thus, the probability that the moment in time that has somehow been mysteriously selected to be the "present" (something that physics, by the way, has no explanation whatsoever for) would correspond to a moment in one's lifetime would seem to be vanishingly small. Also, if one is to be identified with a particular physical body, the probability that the set of genes that formed the blueprint for that body would ever have come into combination is virtually zero (and still smaller is the probability that the particular configuration of material particles that comprises one's present physical body would ever have formed, much less exist at the present moment). Yet here you find yourself (a field of consciousness that is unique and special to you at any rate) existing at the present time. This is most surprising (indeed virtually impossible) based on the view that you are identical with, or dependent on, the presence of a particular collection of material particles at a particular moment in time.

There is no real place for mind or consciousness in the great World Machine of modern physicalistic science (leaving aside for the moment certain interpretations of quantum mechanics). Indeed, physicalistic science is at a loss to explain how the human brain, composed like everything else of supposedly insensate matter, can give rise to conscious experience (as contrasted with mere information-processing). To be sure, modern cognitive neuroscience has achieved remarkable insights into the nature of the brain activities that are associated with various forms of cognitive experience. What it has not thus far achieved is any explanation of how a three-pound hunk of meat, which is basically nothing more than an ongoing (albeit complex) chemical reaction, can give rise to conscious experience in the first place.

The Dream of the Person

You are your mind, not your body, not even your brain. You are your thoughts, your personality, your memories, your emotions. In short, you are a person, not a blob of pulsating neurons. While your body and brain might decay into dust, you may survive by being:

1. Brought to Heaven (or Hell, Valhalla, Hades, or the Dreamtime) in an angelic (or demonic) ethereal body,

2. Reincarnated with some of your memories, emotions, thoughts and much of your personality intact, at least at a subconscious level,

3. Transformed into an astral ghost capable of monitoring the events in this work and, occasionally, manifesting yourself to living,

4. Resurrected in your present body or a replica thereof at the time of the Day of Judgment, or

5. Transferred to a cybernetic "brain" by having your memories, thoughts and personality traits downloaded into a supercomputer or robot, or perhaps etched into the neuronal connections of willing or non-so-willing volunteers (or possibly even into a mass of stem cells growing in a beaker in some remote laboratory).

At any rate, there is hope for eternal life, at least if the Cosmos's neuro-copying equipment and file retrieval systems are up to the task and do not go on the blink and if some Agent is sufficiently enamored of one's personality to want to keep a copy of it on hand for eternity (or barring that at least until the heat death of the universe).

The first and fourth alternatives above are subscribed to by certain adherents to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic (Abrahamic) religious tradition, as well as the great mythological traditions of the pre-Christianized world, who look forward to reunion with the deity (or deities) and loved ones in some type of post-mortem realm such as the Christian Heaven. In the fourth alternative above, the resurrection is thought to take place right here on Earth or in some Resurrection World in a parallel universe. Besides having one's personality recreated, we will all be generously provided with idealized resurrection bodies as well (see Edwards, 1997, pp. 53-62 for an entertaining discussion of beliefs regarding the resurrection of the body within the Christian tradition). Many resurrectionists believe that these will be the same physical bodies we occupied in life (although as noted above, each of us has already occupied several different physical bodies). If this is the case, I hope will not have to fight with the likes of Socrates and Jack the Ripper over who owns a particular set of atoms that we shared during our respective physical lives. (It is estimated that every minute, each of us inhales an atom once expelled in Julius Caesar's dying breath.) Thus, this process of sharing recycled atoms might well result in a heated game of "musical atoms," much like musical chairs, at the time of the resurrection. Thus, the resurrectionists are not only lost in the Dream of the Person, they are still lost in the Dream of Matter.

The third alternative, reincarnation, is subscribed to by many shamanistic traditions, by Eastern religious traditions such as Hinduism and Buddhism (although as we shall see later, many of the more sophisticated adherents to the Eastern religious tradition have awakened from the Dream of the Person), and by as much as one-quarter of the people in the highly-Christianized United States. There is even empirical evidence for reincarnation in the form of children who report seemingly accurate memories of past lives (Stevenson, 1987).

Additional evidence for the survival of the person has been provided by parapsychologists studying apparitions and hauntings, purported massages from the dead communicated by mediums or in dreams, as well as near-death experiences and the related phenomenon of out-of-the-body experiences. However, this evidence (as well as Stevenon's evidence for reincarnation) has largely been rejected by mainstream scientists on the basis of methodological flaws and alternative explanations. See Stokes (2007a, 2007b) for a comprehensive overview of the debate between the parapsychologists and their critics as well as the other themes discussed in this essay.

As for the fifth alternative, some writers, including Hans Moravec (1988), Grant Fjermedal (1987), and Frank Tipler (1994) among others, have suggested that one's thoughts, memories and personality could be "downloaded" into a computer or robot, allowing one's essential self to survive after death in a cybernetic world or as a cybernetic simulacrum operating in the physical world. This survival could be for eternity, or at least until the heat death of the universe (after which the universe may not be that much fun to play in anyway).

Awakening from the Dream of the Person

Just as the collection of atoms and elementary particles making up your physical body undergoes continual change and replacement, so do your thoughts, emotions, memories and personality traits. Your essential self persists, despite these continual changes in the contents of your consciousness (and, we might add, subconscious and unconscious minds as well). Thus, you cannot be your personality or its "contents," such as your thoughts, emotions, and memories.

During the past three decades, neuroscientists have amply demonstrated that one's sensations, feelings, thoughts, emotions, memories, ideas, and even personality can be radically altered through electromagnetic, surgical, chemical, and accidental interventions in the brain. If relatively minor modifications of brain states can substantially alter the nature of one's experience and personality, as has by now been amply demonstrated, how could your personality and experiences manage to continue on in a more or less an uninterrupted fashion after the far more drastic event of the destruction of your entire brain? Also, many of the concerns that drive the structure of your personality have to do with the preservation of your own physical body and those of people who are closely related to you. What would be the point of the continuance of these concerns once your physical body has been returned to dust and your ability to intervene in the physical world perhaps radically curtailed?

Of course, there is the possibility, as suggested by Tipler (1994), that your personality may be resurrected by a benevolent and almost omnipotent Programmer that is so enamored of you that She creates a simulacrum of your personality in a semi-eternal cyberspace. However, there is nothing in principle stopping a sufficiently ardent Fan of your personality from constructing a computer or robot to simulate your personality while you are still alive. Surely it would be absurd to think that your self would then reside both in the computer and in your physical body. The computer or robot is just a replica of you. It is not you. You are not your personality traits and behavior patterns.

Along similar lines, it could be argued that, if you are not the particular collection of physical particles that make up your present physical body, perhaps you are the particular pattern of molecules that make up your present body (including your brain configuration and thus personality). You would then remain the same person even if the physical particles that make up your body changed, so long as the general pattern remained the same. This is the basis of the famous beaming technique in the Star Trek television and movie series. In Star Trek, one can "beam" to a new location by undergoing a process in which one's physical body is atomized, information about the pattern of the physical particles that make up one's body is sent to a distant location, and a new body is reassembled (presumably out of new atoms) at the second location. Peter Oppenheimer (1986) and Derek Parfit (1987) have independently concluded that this beaming process would result in the death of everyone who used it as a form of transportation, followed by the construction of a replica of the person at the destination site. This replica may not be the original person any more than identical twins are the same person as one another. To make this example more compelling, assume that more than one copy of the person is assembled at the destination site. Surely it would be difficult to believe that one's self could simultaneously inhabit all the replicas of one's physical body that are constructed at the destination site, insofar as a conscious self cannot have several separate and independent streams of consciousness occurring at the same time.

Thus, you cannot be the pattern of your neural activity, your emotions, your memories, your personality traits, or your present hopes and dreams. We have now awakened from both the Dream of Matter and the Dream of the Person. If we are not our physical bodies and not our personalities, then what can we be? What further dreams await us?

The Dream of Atman and Brahman

The self that (seems to) persist over long time periods (from birth to death in the popular, common view) would appear to correspond to what Hornell Hart (1958) called the "I-thinker," that entity that thinks one's thoughts (although it may not have a primary role in generating them), feels one's feelings, remembers one's memories and senses one's sensations, rather than being the conglomeration of the thoughts, feelings, memories, and sensations themselves. After all, these contents of consciousness are fleeting and do not persist from one moment to the next. One outlives one's current emotional state, and one's self may survive the demise of myriad personalities. After all, how could we be the contents of our streams of consciousness when these contents change from moment to moment while we ourselves seem to persist unchanged from moment to moment, day to day and even from year to year?

What seems to persist is the field of consciousness itself. Perhaps, as suggested above, our real selves are fields of pure consciousness, the "contentless consciousness" of Indian philosophy, as described by Rao (2002), among others. In other words, we are the vessel of consciousness rather than the contents of that vessel.

After all, how could we be the contents of our consciousness when such contents change constantly while we seem to persist unchanged from moment to moment, day to day, and even from year to year? It is one of the goals of Buddhist meditative practice to realize that one's emotions, one's cravings, and one's personality are not oneself, to realize oneself as a center of pure consciousness and to extinguish the cravings and clingings that cause discontent and suffering. Similarly, in the Vedantic tradition of Hinduism, one of the ultimate goals in spiritual development is to realize the identity between Atman (one's individual consciousness) and Brahman (the World Consciousness, or, to use a potentially misleading term from the Western tradition, God). Under the Vedantic worldview, there is only one pure consciousness, and we are all the Universe looking at itself from different perspectives.

Of course there are those, such as Daniel Dennett (1991), Susan Blackmore (1991, 1993, 2002) and Thomas Metzinger (2003), who deny the very existence of a continuing self, or "Cartesian theater," as Dennett calls it. The self, they maintain, is a convenient "story" we tell ourselves in an attempt to render our experiences coherent and consistent. As such, the self is an entirely fictional concept, and "we" are nothing more than the scattered contents (fleeting sensations, thoughts, and emotions) of "our" minds. To most people the existence of a continuing self is immediately given and obviously true. It is an integral part of our essential existence. However, if thinkers such as Blackmore and Dennett are correct, there is no need to worry about whether the self will survive death. Indeed, the "self" does not even survive moment to moment and in fact does not even exist at all.

The Zen doctrine of "No Mind" also denies the existence of a continuing self. However, the Buddhist doctrine seems more directed at the concept of the self as one's personality, comprising one's aspirations, motivations, cravings for material possessions, lusts, pride, and so forth, rather than at the existence of a field of pure consciousness. A goal of Buddhist practice is to distance oneself from these transitory elements. In order to achieve a state of peace and tranquility, the Buddhists teach that one must suppress and eliminate one's cravings and greed, which, unfulfilled, are the root of all human misery and suffering.

As we have seen above, most branches of Buddhism and Hinduism teach that the true self is pure consciousness, not the contents or objects of consciousness. Thus, rather than clinging to the hope that one's personality will survive relatively intact in some sort of afterlife, the Eastern philosophies teach that our personalities are transitory and not our true selves. One's true self in this view is the pure consciousness that in Hindu philosophy is taken to be identical with all consciousness, including that of the World Soul or Brahman. Under the Vedantic worldview, there is only one pure consciousness, and we are all the Universe looking at itself from different perspectives. Thus, according to this view, when persons temporarily abandon their individual identities and perceive themselves as merging with the Cosmos or as being in perfect union with God, as in the mystical experiences described by William James (1902) and others, they are seeing directly into their true selves. All consciousness is the one Consciousness that underlies this and all other worlds. We are fragmented splinters of the World Soul, our selves at once separate from, and yet identical to, one another.

It should be conceded that survival in the form of pure consciousness with little continuity of memories, emotions, and predispositions from one's previous biological life may not be what most persons would consider survival in the true sense (i.e., survival with one's memories and personality completely intact). It would, however, be survival of one's essential self, the central core of one's existence.