Why must immortality necessarily be about me?
In our recent analyses of the “Universal Ego,” we have accepted what science has established thus far: matter continues; causal chains continue; life continues; evolution continues; and, on a cosmic scale, the history of matter itself continues.
The one thing for which we currently have no scientific grounds to assume is that the subjective perspective of this particular “self” continues after the destruction of the brain.
And perhaps the most radical naturalistic position is not to say, “there is no immortality,” but rather to ask:
“Why must immortality necessarily be about me?”
This is precisely the point at which our dialogue with Diotima can move toward something much deeper: a different ontology, in which the fundamental reality is not the individual, but the continuous cosmic process within which individuals emerge temporarily.
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The Ego as the Wrong Starting Point
If we try to examine the question without beginning from some religious belief, then there is a first, difficult step: to question the very concept of the “EGO.”
The biological ego is not a thing that resides somewhere inside the body. It is a dynamic process.
The body changes. Cells change. Memories change. Personality transforms. Desires, fears, beliefs, and self-image do not remain constant. And yet, through all these changes, human beings experience themselves as if there were a continuous “I.”
This suggests that we may already have attributed to the “EGO” more permanence than it actually possesses.
And here the crucial question arises:
What exactly would have to continue after death for us to say that “I continue to exist”?
If we answer, “the soul,” we have already introduced a metaphysical assumption.
If we answer, “my consciousness,” we have to explain how a consciousness could continue when the biological functioning of the brain has ceased.
If we answer, “my memories,” then it is not obvious that the existence of those memories somewhere in the Universe means that I continue to experience them.
And if we answer, “the material of which I am made,” then indeed there is continuity — but not necessarily continuity of the person.
The atoms of our bodies do not disappear because we die. Matter and energy participate in new processes. The elements that once constituted a human being can become part of plants, animals, microorganisms, rocks, the atmosphere, the oceans and, on a cosmic scale, new configurations of matter.
That is a real form of continuity.
But it is something fundamentally different from saying:
“I, as this particular person, will continue to exist and will know that I am continuing.”
And perhaps this is where the fundamental confusion lies.
From the Continuity of the Universe to the Continuity of the Self
The Universe does not need to preserve our “EGO” in order to continue.
Quite the opposite.
From a strictly naturalistic perspective, the “EGO” is a temporary phenomenon emerging within a highly complex biological organization of matter.
Like a whirlpool in a river, it is real, but it is not a separate object existing independently of the water and its movement. In much the same way, the human ego may be considered real without being an eternal, self-sufficient substance.
The whirlpool disappears when the conditions that sustain it change.
The water, however, continues.
In an analogous way, the human being dies, while matter, energy, causal processes and the cosmic process itself continue.
We can therefore speak of continuity of existence without continuity of the EGO.
And this distinction may be more important than the question of “life after death” itself.
Can the Biological Ego Continue as Universal?
Here I would give a very cautious answer:
We have no scientific grounds to claim that a particular biological ego continues after death as a universal consciousness.
But we can defend a very different proposition.
The particular ego existed as an event within the Universe, and the consequences of its existence do not simply vanish when biological functioning comes to an end.
Every human being changes the world.
A word we spoke, a child we raised, a person we influenced, a book we wrote, an action that caused other actions — all of these create chains of causes that may continue long after our biological existence has ceased.
In this sense, a human being does not continue as a person, but continues as a causal event.
And perhaps this is a far more earthly, and at the same time far more magnificent, conception of immortality.
Is Post-Mortem Continuity, Then, Religious and Egocentric?
To a considerable extent, yes — when “life after death” means:
“I will continue to exist as the same person; I will retain my identity and will continue to experience myself.”
That is an intensely anthropocentric assumption.
The Universe appears to have no obligation to preserve our personal identity.
Our desire to continue is not, by itself, evidence that we can continue.
And here religious thought often does something psychologically understandable: it takes the deepest human fear — “I do not want to cease to exist” — and transforms it into a cosmological proposition:
“Therefore, I will not cease to exist.”
But the “therefore” has not been demonstrated.
There is, however, another possibility — one that is less egocentric.
We can say:
I do not need to continue for existence itself to continue.
Life does not need to preserve my individual identity in order to continue generating forms, relationships and consciousness.
The fact that I once existed may be enough.
What, Then, Remains of “Immortality”?
Perhaps we need to abandon the idea of the immortality of the person and speak instead of the immortality of the process.
We are not outside Nature, waiting for Nature to “carry us” somewhere after death.
We are Nature itself in a particular, temporary form of organization.
We emerge from it, exist within it, and return to its processes.
The mistake may lie in asking:
“Where will I go when I die?”
when the deeper naturalistic question could be:
“What happens within Nature when this particular form of organization that I called ‘myself’ ceases to exist?”
And the answer is much less comforting to the individual human being, but much more consistent with what we know:
The process continues.
The EGO does not necessarily.
And perhaps precisely this relinquishing of the EGO as the central protagonist of the cosmos is the first step toward a genuinely non-anthropocentric understanding of existence.
We are not the center of continuity.
We are moments within continuity.
A Final Objection — and Perhaps the Most Important One
There is, however, an important qualification.
We should not equate the rejection of personal immortality with the claim that “nothing continues.”
That would simply be the opposite error.
Matter continues. Causal chains continue. Life continues. Evolution continues. And, on a cosmic scale, the history of matter continues.
What we currently have no scientific grounds to assume is that the subjective perspective of this particular “self” continues after the destruction of the brain.
And perhaps the most radical naturalistic position is not to say:
“There is no immortality.”
but rather to ask:
“Why must immortality necessarily be about me?”
This is the point at which our dialogue can move toward something much deeper: a different ontology, in which the fundamental reality is not the individual, but the continuous cosmic process within which individuals emerge temporarily.
The individual, from this perspective, is not the ultimate unit of existence.
It is an episode.
A temporary organization.
A moment in which the Universe becomes capable — through a biological organism — of experiencing, observing and questioning itself.
And when that particular organization dissolves, the Universe does not cease.
Only that particular perspective ceases.
Perhaps, therefore, the most profound challenge to the human idea of immortality is not the assertion that “you will live forever,” nor even the assertion that “you will not.”
It is the realization that the question itself may be improperly framed.
Perhaps the Universe does not ask:
“Will this individual survive?”
Perhaps it simply continues.
And we — each of us — are temporary forms through which that continuation becomes visible.
That does not give us the personal immortality we instinctively desire.
But it may offer something intellectually more demanding:
not immortality of the self, but participation in existence.
Not an eternal “I,”
but an eternal process in which, for a brief moment, there was an “I.”