LIFE AFTER DEATH
There are many people who believe that there is some form of life after death. This belief has no basis in any scientific research but is based on speculation, fantasy and wishful thinking. There are many “theories’ around trying to explain the many, not fully understood phenomena around us. Only those theories, which can explain their validity by repeated testing and can correctly predict the outcome of experiments, will have value. Science can formulate a theory, and then proceed to test it experimentally and if the outcome is not what were expected it must be regarded as non-viable.
Many superstitious beliefs have been tested on a scientific basis and found wanting. These scientific research results, for example in extra-sensory perception, when ESP is found not to exist, are of course not accepted by the true believer and dismissed as invalid. There are many theories around which have not been proved, but which still have many believers who are convinced that their interpretations are correct. Many so called “proofs” cannot be verified in any acceptable scientific way. Many believers turn the request for “proof“ around. When they claim that “God” exists and cannot deliver any “proof“ of that claim, they insist that non-believers have to “proof“ that God does not exist. This is as unacceptable as “guilty” until proven “innocent”. If I claim that an ancient scripture is the only correct one out of many others, I do not have to “prove” that. I can just insist that one must “prove” that it is not.
We have, however, abundant proof that there is no “life” after death. “Life” being defined as a conscious state of mind, where one can see, feel, and interact with others. If there is a state where one is not aware of his/her individuality then one cannot regard that as life after death. What is that proof? My mother died of Alzheimer's Disease. Slowly her brain deteriorated, her memories, her personality, her ability to reason, sadly, slowly but inevitably changed and finally disappeared while her body was still alive. In the end there was not any awareness or any control of her body movements. The brain died before the body. Medical research has shown that, without a doubt, the death of brain cells was the cause of this dreadful outcome. Conclusion: When the brain dies, self-consciousness, and awareness dies with it. No amount of wishful thinking and wacky theories can change that. Many, well educated people, cannot accept that death is the end of one’s personal awareness and dream up theories that seem to make it possible for a form of afterlife. One that comes to mind is the claim that since energy cannot be destroyed, the energy that leaves the body reformulates itself in some other realm and thus one’s awareness can survive. Indeed Energy cannot be destroyed but it can dissipate. The energy, which is released in the environment, is not destroyed but absorbed by other substances without keeping its original chemical/electrical composition it had in the living brain. When we scramble the zeros and ones in a computer, we still have the same number of bits but the information is lost forever.
Many superstitious beliefs have been tested on a scientific basis and found wanting. These scientific research results, for example in extra-sensory perception, when ESP is found not to exist, are of course not accepted by the true believer and dismissed as invalid. There are many theories around which have not been proved, but which still have many believers who are convinced that their interpretations are correct. Many so called “proofs” cannot be verified in any acceptable scientific way. Many believers turn the request for “proof“ around. When they claim that “God” exists and cannot deliver any “proof“ of that claim, they insist that non-believers have to “proof“ that God does not exist. This is as unacceptable as “guilty” until proven “innocent”. If I claim that an ancient scripture is the only correct one out of many others, I do not have to “prove” that. I can just insist that one must “prove” that it is not.
We have, however, abundant proof that there is no “life” after death. “Life” being defined as a conscious state of mind, where one can see, feel, and interact with others. If there is a state where one is not aware of his/her individuality then one cannot regard that as life after death. What is that proof? My mother died of Alzheimer's Disease. Slowly her brain deteriorated, her memories, her personality, her ability to reason, sadly, slowly but inevitably changed and finally disappeared while her body was still alive. In the end there was not any awareness or any control of her body movements. The brain died before the body. Medical research has shown that, without a doubt, the death of brain cells was the cause of this dreadful outcome. Conclusion: When the brain dies, self-consciousness, and awareness dies with it. No amount of wishful thinking and wacky theories can change that. Many, well educated people, cannot accept that death is the end of one’s personal awareness and dream up theories that seem to make it possible for a form of afterlife. One that comes to mind is the claim that since energy cannot be destroyed, the energy that leaves the body reformulates itself in some other realm and thus one’s awareness can survive. Indeed Energy cannot be destroyed but it can dissipate. The energy, which is released in the environment, is not destroyed but absorbed by other substances without keeping its original chemical/electrical composition it had in the living brain. When we scramble the zeros and ones in a computer, we still have the same number of bits but the information is lost forever.