When I was a child my Cornish grandmother told me
that the pure white husks of cuttlefish I sometimes found in the
jetsam along the shore were the souls of drowned sailors; and some
such concrete image as this of countless centuries of folk-belief has
remained in all of us, even though intellectually we know what I
discovered about the cattle-bones: that eventually they go yellow and
crumble into dust.
Man has had to accept that his body cannot survive
death. So he takes the most inaccessible and mysterious part of it,
the brain, and claims that some of its functionings survive death.
There is no thought, no perception, no consciousness
of it, no consciousness of consciousness, that cannot be traced to an
electrochemical event in the brain. 'I have an immortal and immaterial
soul' is a taught or statement; it is also a recording of the activity
of certain cells by other cells.
A machine as complex as the human brain would also
develop a self-consciousness, a conscience, and a 'soul'. It would
take pleasure in being the complex machine it was; it would grow
metaphysical myths about itself. All that is constructible and
therefore destructible: not magic; not 'super-natural'; not 'psychic'.
Machines are made from 'dead' matter; brains are
made from 'living' matter. But the frontier between 'dead' and
'living' is confused. One could not construct a machine as complex as
the brain out of 'dead' matter; but part of the complexity (as proved
by its actual inconstructibility) of the brain is that its machinery
is made of 'living' matter. Our inability to construct mechanical yet
fully human brains shows our scientific and technological inadequacy,
not any real difference of category between the machine and the brain;
between mechanical functions and supposedly 'spiritual' thoughts.
What survives death is putrescent stopped machinery.
The consciousness is a mirror reflecting a mirror reflecting a mirror;
anything that enters this room can be endlessly reflected and its
reflections reflected. But when the room is demolished, a no mirrors,
no reflections; nothing.
The myth of a separate consciousness partly arises
because of the loose way we use 'I'. 'I' becomes an object - a third
thing. We are constantly in situations where we feel ourselves
inadequate and where we think either 'It is not my fault, since I am
not the person I would have chosen to be' or 'It is my fault'. These
self-criticisms and excuses give us an illusion of objectivity, of
being able to judge ourselves. We therefore devise a thing that
judges, a separate 'soul'. But this 'soul' is no more than the ability
to observe, to remember and to compare, and to create and to store
ideals of conduct. This is mechanism, not ectoplasm; the human brain,
not the Holy Ghost.
Life is the price we pay for death, not the reverse.
The worse our life, the more we pay; the better, the cheaper.
Evolution is the growth of experiences, of intelligence, of knowledge,
and this growth engenders moments of insight, moments when we see
deeper purposes, truer causes, more intended effects. We stand at this
great insight now: there is no life after death. Soon this will be as
certain to everyone as it is certain to me, where I write, that there
is no one in the next room. It is true that I cannot absolutely prove
there is no one without going into the room; but all the
circumstantial evidence supports my belief. Death is the room that is
always empty.
The great linked myths of the after life and the
immortal soul have served their purpose; have stood between us and
reality. But their going will change all, and is meant to change all.
