Hypotheses about the Afterlife

In an interview on NPR this afternoon, author and scientist David Eagleman discussed his recent book, “Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives.“  As creative fiction, his work is perhaps an amusing read as it compels the reader to stretch their imagination about the nature of G-d, man, life, and the afterlife beyond the standard norms that dominate in judeo-christian society and even the world’s religions as a whole.  Scientific progress requires this kind of imaginative capability for the production of novel hypotheses.  Unfortunately, the way science is too-often taught with a dogmatic focus on laws and facts to memorize and too-little attention stimulating ideas about science’s plethora of major unanswered questions, we handicap the potential for future generations to make groundbreaking discoveries.  Interestingly so, I think the same is true in the realm of religion.

We (or at least, society does) propogate the idea of G-d as an old white man in the clouds, perhaps with a checklist, and a pass/fail scorecard that determines our fate in the afterlife.  I’m no cultural historian, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is a mentality formed in youth when to them, parents are equated with the ultimate of higher powers and life is about finding out what kind of bad things you can get away with and still have playtime, and if you go too far, how to apologize and quickly make up for your transgressions before dessert is withheld.  G-d as a concept was never imposed on me as a child, and this societal view of G-d and the afterlife is not one I subscribe to.  Whether this is a result of my own developmental pattern or concepts unique to Judaism remains to me, unclear.

I know far more about hypothesis testing in science than about what the orthodox Judaism position is on the afterlife.  Hypotheses are the ideas that drive scientific experimentation.  The more hypotheses that are tested (and subsequently either supported or rejected), the more we know about the natural world, by definition.  However, to qualify as a hypothesis, the ideas they embody must be testable.  This is a non-trivial axiom of the modern scientific method as it sets the primary boundary on the kind of knowlegdge science can help us acquire.  Suggesting that his book of (non-testable) ideas about the afterlife constitutes a collection of hypotheses, Dr. Eagleman does immense damage to the public’s understanding of scientific method and consequently the very role of science in society.  We cannot test a hypothesis about the afterlife, and so science has no power to say anything about this body of inquiry whatsoever.  To know about the afterlife, if such a thing can be knowledge at all, we must turn to other sources.

But why focus on afterlife, when we are so deeply entrenched in this life?  Considering a similar set of options is  the apt scientist, who, observing that species diversity changes over time, instead of proposing a hypothesis about a divine exterminator, rather considers ecological hypotheses about resource competition and adaptation.  We would laugh out of the department any PhD-gadol who thought he could explain the K-T extinction by means of a divine exterminator.  Should we also similarly laugh out of consideration any body of beliefs that depends on rewards after we die?  I whole-heartedly think so.  Judaism is a religion that I consciously subscribe to and believe in, in part, because it acknowledges the physical reality of the world we live in.  We are challenged with transforming this world not after we die, but while alive, through the performance of mitzvot, good deeds.  Paraphrasing the words of the Rebbe, we need to make here on this planet, starting in our own hearts and backyards, a dwelling place for G-d.  I’m sure there’s a lot more philosophy and scripture relating to this mandate, but for now, I’ve got my hands full tilling this small patch of soil before me.