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From the ancient Egyptians to popular fiction, the question of whether an afterlife exists has puzzled and intrigued us for millennia. Now mainstream physicists have turned their focus to the subject, but few can agree on an answer.
In the words of the now famous scientist, Aaron Freeman, who wrote Eulogy from a Physicist, “According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.” Whether your views on his remarks align or not, he does make a valid point. We are a measurable mass of chemical and electrical energy, and that includes the lightning-fast synaptic transmissions that allow us to think, feel and make sense of the world.
Even when these processes stop, many believe that the sum total of our memories, emotions and that nebulous of all things, consciousness must go somewhere. If we are to take that law of conservation as fact, where does the consciousness go when our bodies can no longer support them?
In 2013, Freeman compared human existence to particle physics. He likened people who are looking for love to quarks in that they were attracted by strong forces. This seemed to spark a much larger debate with scientists such as Sean Carroll, Cosmologist and Physics Professor at CALTECH. Professor Carroll argues that if there was an afterlife, consciousness would have…