Alzheimer's, Memories, the Afterlife, and the Internet

This week our Melton class discussed Jewish concepts of the afterlife. On my walk today, I listened to a discussion of Ahlzeimer's disease. Part of the discussion covered a group of Alzheimers's patients who were encouraged to write down their memories - which would subsequently be forgotten.

This coincidence led me to think about the meaning of being alive, and what an afterlife is or could be. The concept of what life is is critical to understanding of an afterlife. In order to talk about living on after death, we should be clear on what we mean by living.

There are two aspects to living - an inner-life, and a life as experienced by others.  Regarding the inner-life - I have no expectation that it will continue after death any more than the physical body will remain intact. It will be gone.

The echoes that a life leaves in the world, however, continue forever.

There is a trite sense in which this is true - the mere act of living and eating changes the universe an irreversibly. Having children multiplies theses changes, but not in any fundamentally way.

Living is more than the inner life of thought and feeling. To the extent that one does not communicate thought and feeling to others - to interact with and change others and be changed in response - there is no life in the highest sense of the word. We call microbes and plants "living" - but only in a cold, biological sense. We reserve the term "living" in the higher sense for entities that communicate with us - that share their inner lives with us. We revere the life of  those entities that most communicate with us and give the semblance of understanding us - dogs, cats, and primates for example. We squash insects underfoot with barely a second thought.

So, by "living" I mean "exchanging thought and feelings with others."

A thought or feeling or memory that is not communicated dies instantly. It is as though it was never thought. If a person does not communicate any thoughts or feelings at all, that person is as good as dead for all practical purposes. As an aside, it is around this idea that the controversy both about the "Right to Life" and the point at which life ends revolves. When an infant in the womb kicks its mother, life has begun. When near the end of life, the mere fluttering of an eyelid is taken as communication, and terminating the life is called murder. When no communication is possible - the controversy begins.

One's life continues as long as thoughts and feelings that create a response in the person receiving the communication continue. It does not matter  that one's body has long since decayed.

Blogs, Tweets, and the like live on after the death of the Blogger or Tweeter. To the extent that people read the posts, respond to them and are moved by them, it is as if the original poster is still alive. To the extent that they engender new conversations, it is as if the originator of the thought is still living.

I blog, therefore I am immortal.

I tweet, therefore I am immortal.

Comment on my blogs, Retweet my Tweets, and you keep me alive.

Start your own blog, start tweeting, and start your afterlife.

I don't believe these thoughts are necessarily original - but this is not an academic thesis, nor a peer reviewed paper. I don't even know if anyone else will read them. It does not matter.

This is the start of my conversation with my own afterlife.