Time, Life, and Death
May 31, 2025
by William P. Meyers

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Past, Present, and Future

If you are reading this, you are alive, and you are in the present. You know about the past, and you know about the future. There are innumerable details about the past, present, and future you do not know. In this essay I will focus on the relationship between life, death, and time. The truth is fairly obvious, but many people do not like it, so they buy into falsehoods. I will look into that issue as well.

We learn about the world around us in several ways. One is observation. We observe babies being born (or at least presented shortly after birth). We see people die, or at least we see their dead bodies and perhaps graves. We remember that we started as small children and grew.

Another way we learn about the world is from what people tell us, including what we read, hear, or see via various media. While we are likely to make mistakes of observation from time to time, what people tell us may have little or no relationship to the truth. Two questions that are nearly universal are: (1) where was I before I was born and (2) where do I go when I die.

I will start with the truth. Before you were born the world existed, but you did not. After you die the world will continue to exist, but you will not.

Ego can be defined as the self that experiences the world, but it has connotations of self-worth. Combined with the survival instinct, which is crucial to life, the ego does not like the idea of dying. Upon further reflection, it does not like the idea of having not existed in the past.

There is also love. Seeing the death of someone who is loved makes us feel sad. We wish that they were not dead.

Then there is the human imagination. It is a great survival tool. We can think of, for instance, two possible actions (even choices of words), imagine the outcomes of each of those actions, and choose the action with the outcome we prefer. Unfortunately the imagination is a fallible tool. For instance you can imagine going into battle and coming out victorious, only to end up dead.

The idea of life after death has not single origin, but motivating people (mostly males) to go into battle is a classic. In Hinduism, in Nordic pagan religion, in Islam, and in many no longer as well known belief systems, going bravely into battle guarantees a wonderful afterlife. In Hinduism it helps you reincarnate to a higher level, in Islam you get to go to paradise.

Another reason people may believe in the afterlife is that they &qout;see" other people after death. This may be a frightening ghost, or it could be a visit from an ancestor or friend. These visions should be attributed to the imagination, but emotional needs cause them to be interpreted as real, instead of as a hallucination.

Christianity, if you combine is sects, is still the largest belief system in the United States. Going back to its origins, it always promised immortality to its (sinless) followers. Religions promising immortality, and backing that with tales of resurrected man-gods, were already common at the time of Jesus of Nazareth. The early Christian Apostles were simply better at selling the idea to people. Once a community is large enough, members hear the same stories over and over again, without there being anyone giving a contradictory story. Jesus was God, and rose from the dead, and when you die you can go to heaven if you follow the rules. You may observe people being born, and observe them die, but heaven is elsewhere, so you depend on your communities narrative. Plus you will go to hell if you do not believe.

I think most modern people will be happier sticking to the truth. I am a big fan of history, but I don't need to worry about any existence before I was born (or conceived). There are billions of dead Homo sapiens individuals, in the past, where we cannot communicate with them. Only their writings or other physical artifacts allow their past selves to communicate with us. Even when alive, much of us is in the past. We cannot alter our pasts, even when alive (though people certainly lie about them).

When you die you will be in the past. If you believe, as I do, that the physical universe is real, then you should believe that you will be safely in the past, until the end of time, unless it never ends.

We can certainly feel bad for those who are sick or suffering, and at the death of a loved one. There is nothing wrong with a funeral or memorial service. But live goes on, and pretending someone is in heaven or hell or reincarnating promotes the tendency to believe in systems of falsehood, also known as religions.

Here's to life, not just for humans, but for all the species of the planet. (Except mosquitoes and biting flies and other biting insects.)