A recurring theme, and target in the various naive God vs Science debates, I last mentioned it here, but it’s just not an issue for this atheist /scientist. It’s like this:
We are our minds; “our” minds are concentrated in our brains but distributed throughout “our” bodily electro-chemical systems; the content and consciousness of our minds is the sum total of our memes. Our memes live on in recorded copies, physically, including in the minds of others, even if we never create our own magum opus for posterity. We have a duty of care to the next generation for these memes, how we create, acquire and modify them, how we hold, express and communicate them. They live on when our body dies. No argument.
We (our mind) can rest when that happens, in the sense that “we” no longer have any role in how those memes are marshalled and used in the afterworld. Our minds are no longer a coherent set managed by us, but they are out there distributed in the world, living on from the state we left them in. Is that a reward, an escape from responsibility in this life, a credit to wipe the slate clean the moral failings of our memes and deeds in this word, an excuse not to take that moral responsibility in this world?
Hell no, quite the opposite, but at death “we” can at last rest in peace, our job is done.
Just not a source of debate or argument worth any major disagreement, ‘cept maybe a few details for sure. This is good science – and consistent with the history of human psychology – start with Dennett if the idea is new to you. Co-create, onward and upward.
Which brings us to “we” as opposed to “us & them”, “me & other” …. Copernican revolution ? Pah!
[Post Note : http://rorysfindings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/secular-humanism-and-life-after-death.html ]