As an atheist I am regularly asked by theists if I am afraid of dieing and becoming nothing. I universally answer no, not of becoming nothing, just the dieing part. Death for an atheist means missing out on life. What comes after is a settled issue, you cease to be. That rarely satisfies theists oweing to their own fears relating to what comes after their own death. For a theist, life is lived as if on a life long trial, the final verdict determining what happens to their immortal soul.
When they ask this question, they don’t really want an answer, or at least not the answer an atheist would normally give. What they want to hear is an affirmation of their own concerns and worries, to know that even the unbelievers share in the same fear of the unknown that compells rational adults into the waiting arms of religion and spirituality.
A true atheist however, does not really fear the unknown, at least not in that way. Sure we can get spooked by what might be in a dark room, or what’s at the end of a dimly lit cave just like the rest of humanity. What we don’t fear is the unknowns at the end of unanswered questions. We don’t fear the answer to “what happens after we die?”.
As I mentioned before, I do fear death, but only because I will stop experiencing life. I love my life, even with it’s many flaws, it’s failures over the years, the opportunities missed. It all blends together into a tapestry of things and events, emotions and memories that make up who I am. I like life just the way it is.
However, I am not above wondering if there is anything we leave behind, if there isn’t some kind of “afterlife” even for us God disavowing sinners. Maybe a kind life time spanning trail of breadcrumbs for others to follow? Maybe the detritus of our existence and odd empty spaces? Or the old fall back, nothing?
What I discovered for myself was infinitely more surprising. I found two afterlifes, one you get for free, and one you have to earn.
One for free…
For a moment I want you to put aside all your prior conceptions about God(s) and religion and heaven and afterlifes in general. For now I want you to follow along with me.
In physics, there is a law that says that information cannot be destroyed. That it is immutable, permanent. While it appears that black holes destroy information, we know this cannot be true, even if we can’t yet prove it. Some how, some way, even in a singularity, information is preserved.
Ok so now let’s define what information is. Information, in this context is all knowledge, all data, all values, the state of every atom in the universe, everything that has happened in the past, all that was and currently is, counts as information. And all that information is preserved forever. It may not be retrievable, we may not be able to read it back, but it has left it’s mark forever on the fabric of the universe, like a ripple that expands out forever, fading but never completely going away. All that information is left to echo across space and time, forever effecting everything outward in a sphere from wherever the thing or event was that created it, expanding at the speed of light.
That last statement also includes you, your personality, everything you know, all you have done, everything you will do in the future. All of it, all of you, will persist as information, as an echo, in the universe forever.
You, the person reading this right now, have forever left your mark on the universe. You are currently writing it with every blink of an eye, every breath, every heartbeat, every thought. Yes, even the electrical and chemical impulses in your mind at this moment are subtly and immeasurably changing the universe permanently.
If that doesn’t make you hyper aware of everything you are currently doing, then I don’t know what will.
But what does it mean? Well it means that even after you die, you will always remain. Not as a living self aware person, but as a memory of what you were right up to the moment you passed away, forever embedded in the universe.
And, as I said before, it’s completely free, you don’t have to prove yourself, pass any tests, swear to any deity. As a function of the universe, it comes automatically.
This afterlife is on the house.
One you earn…
The second afterlife is still one of memories, but it’s not fixed. You have to work for it in this life, work to extend its duration as long as possible. I like to think of it as immortality by proxy.
This afterlife exists only in the minds of those we leave behind, and it ends as soon as nobody is left to remember we existed. It requires you to earn a place in the conscious minds of people, to convince them you are worth remembering. If you convince enough people, you stand a good chance of being remembered forever, of living on in the minds of the others, of becoming immortal by proxy.
A couple of examples we all remember. Joan of Arc, Leif Erikson, Shakespeare, Vlad the Impaler, Isaac Newton, Atilla the Hun, George Washington, Julius Caesar, Tutankhamen, Mother Teresa, Joseph Stalin, Abraham Lincoln, Mao Zedong, Gandhi, Adolf Hitler, Jesus.
Notice that quite a few of these names belong to some pretty bad people. That’s because you don’t have to do good things to be remembered, you just have to be memorable. We remember Hitler not for like of him or his deeds, but because we know that if we forget about him we would open the door for someone just as terrible to slip in and take his place. And yet he has ensured that we will remember him, probably forever. He has achieved immortality by proxy
Many have already discovered this afterlife for themselves. It is often referred to as one’s legacy. Leaders talk about it a lot, sometimes focusing on it over the tasks before them.
This afterlife can come at a cost. For some it comes naturally, the events of their lives naturally stacking up in such a way as to make others remember them. Others fight for it tooth and nail, squandering huge chunks of their time pursuing “legacy”, sacrificing this life for one they leave behind, so the largest group of people will remember them for generations to come. All in the hope that there wont be a day in which they are forgotten.
For everyone else, we have to be content with something a little more mundane. Our loved ones, our friends, our colleges even. Our children are our best hope to preserve our memory. They see the most of us, and they remember us in our prime. This extends to our grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and if we are lucky great great grand children. Great Patriarchs and Matriarchs of families can often get centuries of afterlife out of the memories of their descendants.
Immortality by proxy is possible, but you have to work for it. You have to earn it.
Were does that leave us?
It leaves us with a choice. For each of us we will have to decide how far we push for immortality by proxy. How much of our lives do we devote to it? What balance is right for you? For the vast majority of us we’ll probably take the mundane approach.
For me, I’m content with the universe and my kids remembering me. I’ll probably have a few relatives and a couple friends that tell tales of my misdeeds. There’s a chance that some of my fellow soldiers from my time in the guard will remember that nerdy guy that always new how to fix the radios and the AFATDS computers but couldn’t pass the 2 mile run to save his life and yet somehow managed to stick it out for the whole six years. Its something, and that’s enough for me.
Beyond ourselves, we can choose to make an effort to remember each other, to show that we mattered to each other by preserving each others memory.
That’s what this atheist is gonna do.
Hypothetically Speaking... 