Our conscious experiences are part of nature just as our bodies are, just as our world is. And when life ends, consciousness will end too. When I think about this, I am transported back to my experience—my non-experience—of anesthesia. To its oblivion, perhaps comforting, but oblivion nonetheless. The novelist Julian Barnes, in his meditation on mortality, puts it perfectly. When the end of consciousness comes, there is nothing—really nothing—to be frightened of.
