C64_Critic wrote:I think it's ok to wade into 'religious implications' for this thread, and in fact I'm not sure how it's avoidable given the topic. I'm very interested in this statement though, what do you mean by an afterlife being a 'necessity' under the governing laws of the universe? I'll be the first to admit I'm no physicist or astronomer, etc., but I'm unaware of any natural laws that have been discovered or are know that indicate anything about us survives our physical death.
Personally, having the hope of an afterlive to see your past loved ones gets you through the day. I'm looking forward to seeing my father again.
On the natural laws that have been discovered I listened to a Sci-Fi Audible book in the Bobiverse series called Heavens River. There's an interesting idea presented. When you back up copies of someone's mind and then bring that person's mind back online, the first copy that comes back up is a "true" copy (assuming the actual person is dead). Any subsequent recoveries of the "copy" have a form of deviation or drift from the original. The theory is that there's a quantum entanglement to the "one" or in this case a soul. It was an interesting idea.
The whole series is about a guy named Bob that was backed up and loaded onto a computer spaceship for interplanetary research. The whole series goes crazy with different things but it's a fun listen to while commuting or mowing the grass.
As to the actual validity of a quantum entanglement, I don't even know what it is but figured I'd drop that nugget out there in case you asked me for more evidence. I can't back it up but there's some research here or at least sci-fi gobbledygook for it. Or you could just go with faith.