If we are to talk of existing in any sense after we die, then the best we can do is to extend our sense of self – our space-time worm – to continue beyond the grave and incorporate how the atoms of our decomposing bodies feed into continuing life after we have breathed our last. Then we might say we have some sort of continuing existence. But this is unlikely to be meaningful to us, and certainly no consolation in the face of a fear of death. There is no sense here that our personhood has survived. Defenders of the after-life want to have it both ways: on the one hand, they wish to describe a
...more
