Sum: Tales from the Afterlives

by David Eagleman

it didn’t take long for Her to realize that humans could be good in many ways and simultaneously corrupt and meanspirited in other ways.

you cannot appreciate the destination without knowing the starting point; you cannot revel in the simplicity unless you remember the alternatives.

There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.

since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become who they want us to be.

to build a machine smarter than you, it has to be more complex than you—and the ability to understand the machine begins to slip away.

A consequence of this cosmic scheme may surprise you: when you die, you are grieved by all the atoms of which you were composed.

The newly arrived Loyals have an imperturbable capacity to hold the beliefs with which they arrived, a deep reluctance to consider evidence that separates them from their lifelong context.