THE AFTERLIFE
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Part 5 - "All Together Afterlife: What is the question again?"
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This is the fifth and final installment in this series. To wrap up this series of articles, I thought it might be useful to describe my approach. I have attempted to stick to a framework that applies an objective and a pseudo-scientific * perspective.

The components of this viewpoint I have tried to keep as few and simple as possible while remaining reasonable and objective. They are as follows:
1. Just like there are laws of nature in this world, there are laws that govern existence in the afterlife.
2. We can use our understanding of the laws of this world to understand the laws of the afterlife.
3. There is continuity and consistency between existences, which makes the above idea reasonable.

It has been these ideas that have been driving my thoughts about what the afterlife will be like. Looking back, I think I have stayed true to these concepts.

A quick and dirty recap of the last 4 articles should articluate the above ideas. The first is that there is an existence to our beings that is not part of our physical body. Since this existence is a metaphysical energy and energy cannot be destroyed, it is reasonable to conclude that our metaphysical component will continue to exist after the physical is gone.

Second, the afterlife will be whatever it will be, regardless of what we want it to be. While belief in religion may be helpful, such subjective belief cannot alter the afterlife. An objective choice of a single religion as "the correct choice" is not possible. Faith, in and of itself, is necessarily a subjectvie act. Subjective thought can hardly effect the laws of nature, only the way we percieve them.

Third, because we will no longer have the benefit of the five senses derived from the physical body, one wonders how we will experience that world without having a body to do so. With no eyes, ears or hands, we will be at a limited capacity to experience and participate in the next world unless we have a new body.

Fourth and finally, once we die we will no longer have access to our brain or the information that we have collected there. Much like popping a Zip disc our of your computer, the infromation stored there is no longer available. The only information that will be accessible to us will be that information which makes it into our metaphysical being; deeper emotional information.

Not to sound like Benjamin Franklin when summarizing, but in the next world nothing is certain but change and confusion. (Hopefully there will be no taxes.) Will we be prepared for it? Perhaps this is the role religion will play for us; not in describing the next existence but in making us psychologically ready to die. If this life teaches us anything, it's that we may not feel ready for changes, but somehow we accomplish such changes regardless. To quote David Bowie, we have to "turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes..."

* I could not possibly call my viewpoint "scientific", since I'm not much of a scientist and this issue is somewhat beyond current science. But using such principals is useful.