Simply, I don't know. I don't pretend to know. I haven't a fucking clue. My hunch is that "afterlife" is a bloated oxymoron and that once the meat-machines we call our brains cease working, so do we. It's tough to conceive what it might be like to not exist, but should it be? After all, how many of us remember anything prior to our own birth?
Part of me likes the idea that I somehow persist after biological death; it might even be possible, albeit in ways currently antithetical to materialistic science. Empirical science (as currently practiced) may be missing something crucial; if consciousness exists after the demise of its neurological substrate, then it's likely our current definition of consciousness is simply wrong-headed. Maybe brains are more akin to receivers than computers and we're all tuned to the same channel, or at least the same spectrum.
Another part of me finds the prospect of an "afterlife" thoroughly unnecessary. Simply ceasing to exist -- in whatever form -- seems so much more economical than lingering in some nonbiological state. Or maybe, upon death, you're presented with the option to "terminate program."
Eternal life or blissful oblivion -- what would you do?*
*I should point out that none of this logically entails the existence of "God"; if there's a "next world," then I assume it's every bit a part of our Cosmos as black holes and quasars. In this context, the "soul" should be viewed as a phenomenon intrinsic to sentient organisms, perhaps amenable to technological intervention.
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