Does Consciousness Continue After Death?
This is not a comfortable question. Too often when people ask this, they don’t want the true answer, they want whatever allows them to sleep soundly at night. If that’s you, click away. You might be happier for it.
Look, humans don’t know everything about the universe — there’s more of what we don’t know than what we do know — but we do know at least two things.
One, we know everything you and I are made of. We already have the language to describe the most basic parts of the universe — all the elementary particles and the forces moving them around, including the ones inside our bodies.
Scientists are strongly convinced they will never discover new particles that will matter in you and me — no new particles that will change the way we think or behave or how we’re conscious.
Now, again, there’s a lot we don’t know. We still don’t understand space-time, dark matter, biology, sociology, politics, etc. But we have a complete view of 100% of what makes you…you. In the physical sense.
Two, there is no particle in your mind — no atom, electron, proton, or neutron — that will pass on so much of a nanogram of your personality, thoughts, feelings, values, or anything related to your identity to another life. No particle survives death.
