On Death.

All Hallows' Eve, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead. My mother died on this day eight years ago, my father died on 29 October four years ago. I am also minded at this time of the boys from my Polish scout troop (3. Londyńska Drużyna Harcerska Błękitna Trójka), all born within a few years of me, who have already died, way too young. 

How we cope with the concept of death depends totally on our worldview. Those who would class themselves as rational materialists, holding that there is nothing but matter, and that death is a final snuffing out, would, I imagine, have a harder time coping than those who sense greater forces at play.

My worldview is based on the assumption that consciousness is the fundamental property of the Universe; spacetime and matter are emergent properties of consciousness - not the other way around. This is grounded in interpretations of quantum mechanic, which posit that consciousness is necessary for the collapse of the wave function - that until a conscious observer looks at the outcome, a photon is both a wave and a particle. When the Universe began, it required a consciousness to observe it, I would intuit.

My assumption is that consciousness survives death, though stripped of the ego and other biological markers. Consciousness returns into the panpsychic unity of everything; and from here, my personal subjective experience would suggest a new bodily incarnation that will also glimpse past lives through flashbacks and dreams. These are just strong, frequent and familiar enough to make me sense that this represents the continuation of consciousness beyond biological death.

Now, most of us remember our childhood and our adolescent years, despite the fact that our brains are made up of entirely new material to that which lived out those memories. In a similar way, my life-long flashbacks and dreams give me reason to believe that such anomalous memories were first experienced by my consciousness but in another biological vessel.

Near-death experiences are frequently reported by people who have returned from clinical death (including by my mother after her first heart attack); these NDEs also serve to suggest that slipping from biological life is a pleasant experience. Yet for many near-death experiencers, it is vastly more; a view beyond the veil.

Even if you are of the materialist mindset, you can still take comfort from the fact that after bodily death, after the moment that the vital life-force leaves the biological entity it had inhabited - not a single atom stops its motion. Yes, complex molecules will eventually breakdown as the body decays or is cremated, but bear in mind the lifetime of the hydrogen atom (posited to be 10¹⁶⁰ years). Which is 54 orders of magnitude further in the future than the heat-death of the Universe (a mere 10¹⁰⁶ years away), so no worries. there. And given that 63% of all the atoms in your body are hydrogen, that's nearly two thirds of them that will see out the end of the Cosmos. Not bad, eh? Even materialists must concede that they will be survived by atoms - can those be vectors carrying consciousness forward? 

Panpsychists will hold that consciousness evolves, it orchestrates, gaining in complexity - so I am ready to believe (though I cannot prove) that future incarnations of my consciousness will be more aware, more understanding, and I'd even say morally improved (if we can equate God with Good). Biological evolution is a scientific certainty - I would posit that spiritual evolution is real, through the continuous cycle of rebirth of our eternal consciousness as it slips into yet another body as it passes by, along the eternal journey from Zero to One.

As I get older and wiser, my fear of death as an absolute snuffing out, followed by a nothingness that I cannot even experience, is fading. The actual state of death scares me not - it's just getting there - the frailties of old age, the indignity of disease, especially dementia. That is frightening. Exercise and diet are all-important to maintain health as long as possible.

This time two years ago:
Improvements on the Radom line

This three years ago:
Rural rights of way, revisited

This time four years ago:

Cause of death

This time five years ago:
Opole in the late-October sunshine

This time six years ago:
Work begins in earnest on the Karczunkowska viaduct

This time eight years ago:
Sublime autumn day in Jeziorki

This time nine years ago:
CitytoCity, MalltoMall

This time ten years ago:
(Internet) Radio Days

This time 11 years ago:
Another office move

This time 12 years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time 13 years ago:
My thousandth post

This time 14 years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time 15 years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station