Well, almost impossible. Except if you’re planning on having a head transplant or uploading your brain into a super computer. I’m talking more of the religious concept of life after death.
Interestingly, the first head transplant is scheduled to take place in 2017 and will be performed by Dr. Sergio Canavero, an Italian neurosurgeon.
I’ve thought about life after death a lot. I think most people at some point seriously think about this concept, because we all need some purpose in life, and what better purpose than immortality?
There can be no life after death and that is a fact. Despite religious beliefs that claim otherwise, life after death is impossible and here’s why.
The concept of a soul is central to life after death. The idea is that after we die, our souls leave our body and goes to some other place. Without a soul it will be impossible to continue living. We know that because our bodies decay and decompose. Once you die your body is of no use to you.
The question then is, do we have a soul?
We know that our memories are housed in our brains. Everything we are and will be is in our brains. When we die our brains also decompose. If we had a soul then our memories must be stored somewhere else. If you have severe brain trauma such as amnesia or a part of your brain is removed in surgery you lose your memories. If you had a soul and your memories were in your soul then you would not lose your memories.
We therefore know that our memories are part of our physical body and not our soul. Theists believe that our memories and consciousness are not necessarily the same thing. That may be so, because we have no way to prove that it doesn’t. If we did have a soul and we died, then our soul would move on to the afterlife without our memories.
We therefore know that our memories are part of our physical body and not our soul.
If we did have a soul and we died, our soul would move on to the afterlife but you would not be “you”. You would have no memory of yourself, your past, your family or anything that makes you “you”.
The answer to the question of the existence of some kind of afterlife is not that complicated after all. There is no life after death, and even if there were we wouldn’t know about it.
You have one life. The life you have now. Make the most of it, because that is the purpose of life.