One of the greatest challenges for informed or uninformed speculation— not in the least part due to the paucity of empirical evidence— is also one of the greatest issues confronting all of us during our short sojourns in this world: What happens to us after we die?
     One seemingly-obvious outcome is that, since consciousness resides in the brain and our brains decompose after death, all consciousness vanishes forever, leaving us truly dead. Only eternal nothingness, not even awareness of nothingness.
     With the increasingly naturalist mood of recent decades, despite condolences to children of a heaven or better place, the view that the grave is the end has been elevated to near intellectual orthodoxy. One consolation is that the preciousness of life is enhanced by cognizance of its brevity and uncertainty.
     It has been assumed that any alternative to the finality of death necessitated an incursion of some sort into the vaporous realms of supernaturalism, which almost as much as the concept of heaven itself has been giving up the valiant fight.
     There have been challenges from philosophers that the apparent lack of interest in even attempting a search for an alternative to finality outside a supernaturalistic context was diagnostic of a lack of vision which they all but dubbed intellectual bankruptcy. Yet where to begin such a search?
     One idea is historically-based. The overall progress of humans— and likely any other self-aware entities in the universe— is an accelerating increase in the ability to control the world. I call my particular version Salvorbug. It’s too involved to go into here in any detail, but for those interested I’ve written a light summary of it.
     In brief it’s based on the exponential power of creative force— in particular, purposeful or teleological replicative energy. Natural moral philosophy, the spacial-temporal vastness of the universe, and the possibility of other dimensions are also pieces of the puzzle. Still it’s only a remote likelihood at best, far from surety.
     If it were true it would likely lead to something like a Mormon heaven— everyone who wants to can rule his or her own world. The reason for this capability is that if power is sufficient to snatch us from the grave, things of lesser difficulty, including most of the desired accoutrements of an afterlife, should be readily available.
     There is one catch. It is most-likely a virtual world, with virtual stuff. That generally means virtual people as well, unless you could get one or more real people to live in your world instead of a world of their own. Of course real people could always visit, and you could visit them— virtual there may in most ways be even more real than real is here!
     All of this assumes that an afterlife would be remotely like the life here. Time and space may be configured entirely differently— if there are even dimensions as we know them— in that realm. At least to start though I think we would try to make life there somewhat familiar, to ease the transition.
 
Love Amongst the Angels
 

     What about dating prospects in paradise— not to mention those 72 maids-a-dancing, or smart-looking guys if you’re a heterosexual female or gay man? Will there be poetry readings and jazz clubs to go to?
     Eternity without carnality of some sort sounds uproariously dull. Without the afterlife equivalent at least. Some kind of unique spirituality immensely more delightful than the greatest sensuality we can know perhaps, but so insusceptible to description that erotic ecstasy— though remote in actual comparison— is still the nearest metaphor.
     One could offer two arguments against ascribing significant— if any— lustiness, literal or figurative, to an envisioned paradise:
     First, that our intellectual and spiritual level would be so advanced and in such a way that, as pleasurable and available as sensual impulse would continue to be, we would always prefer other satisfactions— enjoyments beyond our most antinomian dreams, much less experiences, in this life.
     The second is purely utilitarian. If life beyond the grave was to be popularly perceived as being too alluring, less effort or care would be put into this life. We all might become other-worldly and impractical, resulting in more suffering in the world, not to mention a shortage of plumbers.
     Against these arguments it’s hard to conceive of a meaningful afterlife that is devoid of emotional variety, preferably with emphasis on those emotions which are pleasurable. Christian stereotypes prefer the aesthetic to the ribald— winged harpists, resplendent temples, and streets paved in gold.
     Anyone though who has ever found him or herself transfixed by an innocent yet unusually stimulating painting knows that these seemingly opposite types of emotion are, while far from identical, at least akin to each other. If erotic impulse is 90% in the mind, intellectual passion is 90% in the heart.
     Will 72 virgin guys or dolls be waiting for you after you die? If you can have one, you can have a million— virtual virgins that is. If however during your lifetime on earth you knowingly and unilaterally hurt a lot of people— any people— don’t expect the least caress, promising as it may seem, to pass for quite the real thing.

—Warren Farr
 
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