It is possible that both holontic and organic life impose a permanent pattern on the vacuum, thus that consciousness lasts, but this is extremely vague. Zeyd thinks that such questions "'...will always be matters of faith." (p. 403) But surely he means that they will remain matters of faith until after death. However, the idea that, immediately after death, it will become evident that Islam or Catholicism or Evangelical Protestantism or Spiritualism or something else is a matter of fact strikes me as highly unlikely.
Secondly, the zero-zero drive does not threaten but strengthens cosmic stability. Transfers of virtual particles created the forces that hold the atoms together. Similarly, the zero-zero energy transfer makes a bond that moves the universe away from metastability toward permanent stability. The Holont:
"'...has had word from the future about what this can mean to the future.'" (p. 404)
Interstellar travel should continue. And Holontic communication is like James Blish's Dirac transmitter.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I do believe Catholic Christianity IS a matter of literal fact.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But are you confident that everyone will realize this immediately after death?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes. Because it is Catholic belief that at the moment of death all will make an irreversible choice to love or hate God. And I think that logically means knowing at once where they had been right or wrong about the existence of God and how He revealed Himself to mankind.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Then what of the ultimate Day of Judgment?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
All time is an eternal NOW to God, so the timing of that Ultimate Day Judgement doesn't really matter, in Catholic eyes. Unlike some "evangelical" Protestants, Catholics don't believe in trying to joggle God's elbow!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But, if there is a Day of Judgment, then everybody's fate is not decided immediately after their death. The Day of Judgment assumes the resurrection of a body. A final choice immediately after death assumes the survival of a soul. These are two different conceptions of an afterlife.
The evidence from experience so far in this life is that God, assuming for the sake of argument that He is running the show, does not usually spring big surprises on anyone. If consciousness continues after death, then I expect it to continue from whatever point it had reached just before death. CS Lewis's THE GREAT DIVORCE plausibly shows people after death continuing to interpret their experiences in different ways.
Paul.
Sean,
I question your account of Catholic doctrine. We were told that a soul's postmortem fate depended entire on its pre-mortem state of grace (or lack of it), not on a postmortem choice. Mortal sin: Hell; venial sins: Purgatory; state of grace like immediately after a good confession or after receiving a Plenary Indulgence: Heaven.
But I also think that doctrines change over the years although this is denied.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
A person much more deeply learned in theology could probably respond better to your questions. But I will try.
The Church teaches and believes in two kinds of Judgment: the PARTICULAR judgement that all men face at death. The Church teaches that even the most hardened and monstrous of sinners, if he repents even at the moment of death, will receive grace and mercy. Albeit his "stay" in Purgatory will be much longer than for others who prepared for death in a more timely (!) way. The General Judgment will be at the end of time, however that is defined, when all men (and non human beings) rise to regain their bodies. But that will not change their eternal fate, which was determined at the moment of death.
I thought the Grey Town in Lewis' entertaining THE GREAT DIVORCE, can be understood in two ways. It becomes Hell when any of its denizens stubbornly refuse to leave it, to begin the long journey to the hills where light can be seen just over the tops. And it is Purgatorial when any of the residents realize they are ready to, and can leave, the Grey Town.
Catholics believe DEFINED doctrines, dogmas defined de fide by either the Pope or an Ecumenical Council speaking ex cathedra cannot and will not change. Two contemporary examples being the fury so many have at the Church for absolutely refusing to agree that abortion and active, unrepentant homosexuality are not bad things. There were popes, bishops, and laity who preferred to lose everything in the world, including their lives, rather than yield on matters of principle like that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
What is the point of the General Judgment and of restoring their bodies to the damned?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I think the OT reading for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time for Cycle B, from the Book of Wisdom (from chapters 1 and 2), goes far to answering your question:
God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being;
and the creatures of the world are wholesome.
And there is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of the nether world on earth.
For justice is undying
For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who are in his possession experience it.
Death was not intended or desired by God. It came into the universe by the malice of the devil and the sin of man and all other fallen beings who might exist on other worlds. In that case, it makes sense at the end of time for the damned as well as those who are saved to regain their bodies. They are regaining what God intended them to have, even if it does them no good.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I can't buy it that we would have been immortal if not for some transgression by our earliest ancestors. Surely death is a natural part of life in a mutable, entropic cosmos?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree, in one sense, because what you said describes the universe as we know it. Nonetheless, I still believe death was not desired by God.
Ad astra! Sean
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