Life After Death

I feel that I should begin this post with a disclaimer. Of course it is obvious that whatever I post here is my opinion, or at least my choice of ideological representation (I may well be playing devil's advocate, representing a viewpoint which is not my own yet important to consider nonetheless). Ordinarily I would never post such a disclaimer, but in this case the topic matter may be disturbing to some. I believe we are responsible for the things we say, that like the God of Isaiah, "my word goes out from my mouth and will not return to me empty." Having said this, I stand by my own words, my conscious is clear.

What could warrant such an introduction? Quite simply: it is a matter of life and death. Or perhaps I should clarify further: a matter of life after death. How many doctrines, dreams, comforts, and vindications are founded upon this hope, that one, in some way, lives on after the body perishes? For both Christianity and Islam, the notion that one's personality survives death is integral not just to one's understanding of life in the here-after, but in the here-and-now. What saints and martyrs, what teachers and disciples, what prophets and nations have proclaimed this and even died by this? At a basic level lies the belief that one retains a certain degree of memory, of self-recognition, of a kind of personal integrity (a hanging together) of who one is now. Without this the notion of an afterlife is almost nonsense. If one lives in the here-after but contains no memory or consciousness of who one is now, of what reward is it? Indeed, how can one enjoy or appreciate the effort, the journey, the anticipation, the grace, or even (for some) be judged and fear the punishment? All talk of "meeting one's loved ones" would be meaningless, for how would one recognize them or even know who they are? For this reason it is impossible to separate "life after death" from personality: If the personality does not persist after death, whose "life" do we speak of when we say "life after death"?

Having established this (that any discussion of life after death without an understanding of personality retainment is meaningless), it is necessary to consider the fragility of personality itself. All around exists various instances of head trauma and disease that attack the brain. There is no question that consciousness is connected to brain. If I fall and hit my head hard enough I will lose consciousness. Tied intimately to consciousness, of course, is the notion of personality. The philosopher Nicolas Hearn makes the following observations:

"The advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease debilitates the memory so severely that not only can someone forget their keys, they can also forget what keys are for. Sufferers have been known to attack the spouses they do not recognize, believing them to be intruders in their home. When someone has forgotten all their friends and family, their past and even their name, it can seem that they have indeed become a different person – if they can still be called a person. Alzheimer’s disease is a powerful argument against life after death, because if you can be dead when you are alive then you can certainly be dead when you are dead."

In other words, once the brain is traumatized one's personality is changed, in many instances, irrevocably. What then is the expected outcome for personality once the brain literally dies and decays? Hearn's point is well-taken: If you can be dead (one's personality- one's existential self) when you're alive (biologically), you can certainly be dead (existentially) when you're dead (biologically). The notion of life after death is here seen for what it is: a present dream, functioning more to fulfill various psychological needs now than a reality after death.

What are the implications? The possibilities are many. But, due to space, the next chapter will have to be continued...