A Few Words on Mortality

Our mortality is, for most of us, the most serious issue we face. Yet, to write about it seems frivolous, as if everything that could be said about mortality has already been said, and said many times. And yet, there are still those -- a majority of us -- who continue to hew to outdated and often bizarre notions about mortality, perhaps out of fear or narcissism or ignorance. So comment on mortality to begin with is appropriate.

When we die we will not go to heaven, and we will not go to hell. We do not have souls, spirits, essences, atma, or any other immaterial thing that will leave our bodies. We do not belong to an eternal consciousness nor have an eternal being. We will not reincarnate. We will not join with God or a Universal Spirit. We will not look down upon the living from a cloud. The people who died before us are not doing that now. There are no ghosts, and we will not walk among the living. Our lost children, relatives, friends, and pets are not waiting for us; we will never see them again. Dead children do not grow up; they do not live in heaven or pergatory or limbo or anywhere. We do not on death have a chance for forgiveness or punishment, for redemption or for blessedness.

Instead our bodies decay if not destroyed outright. The cells whose structure form our memories, personalities, and ability to think fall apart. Parts of us may be recognizable for a long time; our ability to recognize ourselves, to function, and to exist as ourselves end when our cells no longer function.

How do I know this? I know this for many reasons, and indeed, on a moments open relefection on the evidence we have of the Universe today it should be self-evident. There has never been any physical evidence for a soul: none. Let us be clear again: no physical evidence for a soul. Let us also be clear at the outset, though, that this does not prove there is no soul (or any varient of 'soul"); it just means there's an absence of evidence to support the idea. Likewise, we know the body does not ascend into heaven or the like after death because we can actually watch the body rot away. That does not mean prove there is an absence of the soul, just that if there is a soul it must survive and be dsitinct from our bodies.

There is an extraordinary amount of evidence today, however, that refutes the existence of a soul in any traditional form. The existence of a soul contradicts what we now know are the indistinct and arbitrary boundaries between humans and other living things and between living and non-living things. While we take such boundaries for granted, we now know when looking closely as a matter of physical fact they do not exist. For this reason the existence of a completely unique soul for each human, or for each unique living thing, or for humans as a unique group, or even for all living thingsas a unique group, is not as a fact tenable. There might be some sort of "Universal Soul" that encompasses everything but not distinct individual souls. It is not clear how such a Universal Soul, were it to exist, would possibly be meaningful given that the distinctions between us are arbitrary. Yet we also now know the Universe has existed long before us and will continue to exist long after we're gone. If there were some sort of Universal Soul it is hard to see how it has much to do with humans or the Earth.

We have ample evidence to believe, however, in the concept of the soul in the many different ways people have claimed it, is merely a human invention. That is because we have seen numerous demonstrably false claims about souls and the like, and because those claims are not only inconsistent with the phsyical world but also with each other. And, finally, we know that the supposed existence of a soul of any kind is unnecessary to explain the Universe or ourselves or anything in between. Instead, such claims, when specific, are demonstrable fantasies. That is why we should not believe them.

One can -- and people often do -- make wild and frivolous assertions about things, asserting that something exists in some unperceivable form without any apparent effects. I have not addressed herein (though I may elsewhere in the blog) neo-Platonic and Kantian arguments for souls, which are not based on evidence. All knowledge depends on our ability to perceive and remember. Even claimed a priori knowledge demands perception and memory of the a priori. We take perception and memory often for granted, and we are often justified to be suspect about them. Yet ultimately all knowledge depends on at least rudimentary perception and memory; frivolous objections at this level are disregarded precisely because they are frivolous, because accepting them would make "knowledge" impossible. We use the word "know" subject to this, because truly absolute knowledge is a chimera. In other words, saying one "knows" something does not mean such knowledge is immune from frivolous objections. That is what we mean when we say we know there is no soul and no afterlife. Only that we know that there is no soul and no afterlife unless it is impossible to know anything.

So, to recap: there is no of any kind evidence for a soul.  Moreover, the notion of a unique soul (or any synonym of a soul) for each human is inconsistent with the lack of definite natural boundaries between humans and other humans, non-human living things, or inanimate things. Nor is there evidence that anything leaves our bodies on death or our bodies do anything but decay. There is, however, ample evidence of humans wanting to invent something to extend their lives and existence and inventing religious and spiritual fantasies. The notion of a soul is that type of fantasy.