A Natural Afterlife?
Among the few universals in human society and cultures, past and present, is the belief that even when you kick-the-bucket there's another afterlife bucket that awaits you. Yet there's no hardcore evidence for an afterlife, with or without buckets, in any shape, manner or form. And in any event not all afterlife scenarios are identical. Is the afterlife therefore just wishful thinking or might physics be at work?
Death is a necessity otherwise Planet Earth would be an awfully lot more crowded than it currently is. You'd be up to your armpits in living cockroaches by now, and then some. That's also not to fail to mention the requirement - assuming no death - for non-living food sources. Energy has got to come from somewhere to sustain the living and it's not as if we're solar powered or can digest nuclear fuel.
However, death does seem to be a bit of a bummer in that you go through your lifetime acquiring all of those experiences and memories and knowledge and then poof, it's all gone, and that equally applies to my cat or to your pet dog or any other creature capable of experiencing experiences and retaining some recollection of same. Bummer! But the question might well be, is it really all gone? What if it's really not all gone? But doesn't that require the existence of an afterlife such that you can take it - memories and such - with you?
What we've just talked about - experiences, memories, knowledge, etc. - is just information. You posess information - you ARE information both within and to yourself and to others (including your pet dog). And as been debated - most notably between the late Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind* - it turns out that there is a sort of conservation law for information. Information can't be lost or destroyed. Hawking thought it could be lost or destroyed, specifically in what happens to information if you chucked it down a Black Hole. But Hawking ultimately conceded to Suskind that he was wrong.
So the question arises, can there be an afterlife, just like there is life, life and an afterlife as an emergent property based solely around the laws, principles and relationships inherent in the physical sciences? Nothing supernatural about it. No help from any invisible magic man in the sky.
So life is the rather fluid accumulation of acquiring and processing and being information; the afterlife is the preservation of that information. Now how to get from life to afterlife. At this point I'm at a loss to figure out any mechanism, but maybe readers might have an insight - or two.
*Susskind, Leonard: "The Black Hole War: My Battle With Stephen Hawking To Make The World Safe For Quantum Mechanics": Back Bay Books, New York: 2008.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Our time concept is bogus. There’s no after, there is only now. We are in heaven all the time. Our self-identity as a particular body is also bogus. “We” are all of consciousness—we are everyone all the time.
WilliamFleming
Level 8
Sep 27, 2018
0
@johnprytz I agree with you so far as our day to day lives in the human realm. It feels as though we are our bodies, that we struggle and suffer, that we die.
The idea of universal consciousness only makes sense if you think of yourself as something other than an individual body. I am led in that direction because I don’t see how a system of cells by itself could have awareness and free will. I know it’s a stretch.
I had the proof all written up but have somehow mislaid it. Maybe the dog ate it.
@johnprytz So far as whether rocks and trees are conscious, I don’t know, but in asking that question we are viewing those things as objects, just as we are viewing our own bodies as objects or things. That might be the wrong way. Maybe we should think of everything as ourself—one big self.
Imagine that you have a bunch of finely made robots with which you interact. The robots can function on their own for basic survival tasks, but they have no conscious awareness or free will. They are limited to hard wiring, internal programming, logical analysis, or just randomness. At any one time some of those robots will be out of action. They’ll be recharging or in the shop or something. But you’ll still have plenty of other robots so it doesn’t matter. At some point the robots will be worn out. They’ll die, but no matter, New and better ones are on the assembly line.
To desire immortality as a separate individual seems a foolish and unattainable goal to me. We are immortal and in “heaven” right now at all times if we realize our true identity as universal consciousness. From the perspective of consciousness, the concept of afterlives makes no sense. There is no time.
@johnprytz For most of my life I’ve been hearing about how consciously aware computers are just around the corner. All that’s lacking are a few programming tricks—feedback loops etc. and we’ll be there. It hasn’t happened and I’m very skeptical that it ever will. To believe in something like that is nothing but religious-like faith IMO.
There is another possible way, only slightly plausible, that I describe in my book, “The Staggering Implications of the Mystery of Existence”, available in the kindle store. Unfortunately the book contains woo and is unfit reading for a proper atheist such as yourself. 
One problem I have with tying consciousness to chemicals and inanimate objects is that those things have no objective reality—there are no things. Could it be that consciousness is primary? Have you read about the conscious realism of Donald Hoffman?
@johnprytz “And an immaterial thing like what constitutes feminine beauty can cause definite physiological and psychological reactions within you!“.
Still does a little bit but nothing like it used to.
When computers truly have conscious awareness, then I’ll have to change my mind.
@johnprytz I’m not sure about all this, but I lean toward thinking that artificial intelligence is in an entirely different category than conscious awareness. That’s not to say that consciousness would be prohibited from acting through a computerized robot—that’s what happens in my book. But IMO the opening and closing of switches does not cause consciousness. Are you familiar with the Chinese room paradox? I wonder what the Chinese call it?
@johnprytz Yes, it is also very hard for me to believe that the firing of neurons in a brain could cause deep conscious awareness—same thing.
I am not so sure it is a pure universal. Most definitely the majority of societies and those with written records, but at what point. Studies on indigenous peoples who have had little to no contact with the outside world and haven't developed past the stone tool age mostly indicate no thoughts on death or after life beyond just darkness. As a side note: when asked about death, the gorilla Koko said, reluctantly, that it was darkness and refused to "talk" about it.
Beowulfsfriend
Level 9
Sep 27, 2018
0
Memories change and that puts a different light on past experiences. All of it puts another light on ideas that we can survive death in any way. With so many opinions I think we are just making it up.
DenoPenno
Level 9
Sep 27, 2018
1
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