Looking At A "Systems Approach" Argument For Why There Is No Afterlife

Christina Anne Knight, in her recent (July, p. 32)  Mensa Bulletin piece 'Why There Is No Afterlife - A Systems Perspective' - pulls no punches.  In this post I examine her idea more closely, and why it might have some ballast.  Basically,  Ms. Knight's approach is based on materialist (Darwinian) evolution, which is an argument I have also used in the past.

For example, as I wrote in my post ('Meeting Our Extended Hominid Family'   ) of February 23, 2010:

"As we all know, and can be grown-up enough to say, neither the descendants of apes, or apes themselves possess "souls". There is only a brain, but it is ample to generate consciousness as I already showed in my 'Materialist Model of Consciousness'. Thus, when a human (or ape) dies, that's it. He is gone and there is nothing left - nothing to "punish" and nothing to go on. This hard fact may be why so many evangelicals refuse to accept evolution: they don't want to accept: a) they have no souls, and b) when they're dead, that's it, finito."

The post was accompanied by the following graphic:


So the most primitive hominid ancestor (Ardipithecus Kadabba) depicted at the lower left, from 6 million years ago - possessed no soul - nor did the evolutionary continuum following onward, i.e. to Homo Habilis and Homo Sapiens (upper right). Hence, when either died there would be nothing to go on, to survive in any afterlife.  Nor would there be some unexpected, magical "break out" point in between,  at which a soul suddenly manifests. 

This is analogous to Ms. Knight's argument, i.e.:

"It is a safe assumption that most people do not believe trilobites or velociraptors are at present hanging out with 72 virgin members of their species in some species -specific version of paradise.....Therefore, if we accept that none of our extinct, nonhuman forbears or members of other contemporary species have attained an afterlife, why should anyone believe that Homo sapiens are destined for a different fate?"

Then asking the $64 question:

"What evolutionary adaptation occurred that permitted the existence of something within humans to survive death?"

She then answers the question by naming what most of us already understand  as that manifestation of sentience known as consciousness,  but pointing out "it is not exclusive to our species."

Adding:

"The emergence of consciousness occurred within a hierarchic evolutionary context. So does it even make sense to conceive of the conscious mind outside of systemic structures that supply it contextual meaning?   In other words if I am a product of nature and nurture, what good is an afterlife in which the physical context that shaped my personality is no longer relevant?"

To fix ideas, in a post in which I skewered the concept of a "natural afterlife" (Feb. 9, 2014) I noted the fundamental unit of neural dynamics:

In this 'cartoon' graphic we are looking at an electro-chemical signal (action potentials in (B) ) which are conveyed to the receptor neurons in the region of the temporal lobes. The waveform really represents changes in permeability, we note that when an axon is in its resting state it maintains a constant potential difference, or ‘resting membrane potential’ of –70 mV. When it is excited, it rises to a peak voltage of around 40 mV. This is sketched as the wave pulse peak in (B) with the ‘baseline’ value of (-70 mV) included for reference. One could say that (A) portrays the axon segment shown in a kind of equilibrium condition, or one conducive to a dream state. Only levels of partial consciousness are available in these states.  Generally, a full peak voltage of 40mV is associated with some level of consciousness.

Now, we go to the driver of consciousness localized at the site of the synaptic cleft or terminal.















In the diagram, we focus on Axon 1 and note that when the action potential arrives at the terminal it’s depolarized. This depolarization enables Calcium ions (Ca+2) already within the terminal to diffuse out into the mediating space. These ions follow a concentration gradient, unlike the case of the Na+ ions in the sodium pump. As the ions migrate, then diffuse to the post-synaptic cell (at Axon 2), they leave a channel in their wake that allows quantal releases of neurotransmitter (shown as a solid dot). These, like the Ca+2 ions diffuse across to the post-synaptic cell(s).

One neurotransmitter is acetylcholine. If the transmission of this or any similar chemical is rapid firing will occur, if not it won’t. Note also that Axon 2 must have a way of eliminating neurotransmitters almost as soon as they arrive. For acetylcholine, the enzyme cholinesterase acts to break it down into choline and acetate. In these inactive forms the neuron is spared being in a state of maximal and continuous excitation that would otherwise destroy it.

Generalizing the electrical cable analogy, the synapses act as switches in the system, the ‘on’ or ‘off’ positions denoted by information, in the form of chemical messages, to cross the synaptic cleft and trigger firing of the post-synaptic neuron(s) or not. Most probably there are bundles of similar neurons linked together by their respective connections, to perform critical functions. One might refer to the neuronal super-assembly or 'super-circuit’ within which considerations such as networks, and optimization of paths as well as 'adjacency and order' take precedence. Again, this is almost absurdly oversimplified since there really are no neurons that have only one connection to another. Indeed, we expect the typical neuron to have something like 10,000 connections to others.

What happens if this entire neural dynamic is terminated? We can begin to grasp the effects by first noting from the above diagrams that all waves of polarization and de-polarization cease. Hence, all synaptic activity ceases. There is no more firing of neurons, nor is there any movement of neurotransmitters across axons. 

Consider the same  electric cable analogy described above in terms of what happens at death. Well, the putative electrical signal cable is cut. What happens if an electrical cable to your home is cut? Well the service is terminated...there is no energy "leakage' or  residue that continues after cutting because this would violate the physical laws we know. The electrical energy cannot continue to propagate into your home devoid of the cable within which it's carried. In the same way, all the brain's potential energy terminates at death, there are no 'residuals' left to continue anywhere. Hence, there can be no afterlife.

Ms. Knight in line with this basis,  writes (ibid.):

"The dying system decomposes into subsystem structures lower in the holarchic order that are sustainable within the systemic environment of the deceased system. A dead body becomes a nutrient source for other living systems and not a ghoulish distribution of functioning organs."

What is this "holarchic order" to which she refers?

She notes that the term  "holarchy" (first used by Arthur Koestler in The Ghost in the Machine) embodies  the "interdependence, interrelations and interaction of subsystems which results in a form of self-organization from which a larger system is an emergent product".  In other words, consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of the brain but this very emerged product.  But the extinction of such a system (and emergent product) occurs when the system fails to retain stability.  That is triggered when the key components die, e.g. neurons, neuronal sub-assemblies etc.

This is what Ms. Knight is getting at when she avers a conscious mind cannot exist outside of the function of the key systemic structures.  If then it is the impermanent character of all systems that "makes evolution a universal process"  then:

"If the conscious mind is located at the apex of this holarchic system , then the collapse of the substructure beneath it has terminal consequences."

Thus,

"The conscious mind becomes just another impermanent system subject to physical laws.  It does not survive death because it cannot exist outside the holarchic structure from which it emerged"

In other words, there is no conscious personal entity that survives the dissolution of the neural system with its synaptic connections, neurons etc. As I pointed out earlier.  

Is this plausible?  As I've repeatedly observed in my several  atheist books, it does represent - by the Ockham's Razor principle (simplest hypothesis is the most likely under several options) - the simplest answer for what happens when one dies. Thus, there is no "white light" waiting, no judgment of anything, just a big nothingness - analogous to what occurs with general anesthesia.

However, one specialist anesthesiologist by profession - Stuart Hameroff -   has offered a partial way out for those who think nothingness is too bleak an end.   

After 35 years of anaesthetizing patients and seeing the same results over and over Hameroff  was led to postulate that small structures in the brain called "microtubules" are at the root of apparent "escaped" consciousness and that they hold the key to what happens. He also surmises that at putative death (or even "near death") essential energy associated with the microtubules disperses out from the brain and becomes "entangled" in a larger, undifferentiated whole.

Hameroff cites certain aspects of quantum mechanics to explain his reasoning though, he leaves some ends open. In the brain, information persists through a phenomenon called quantum coherence. 

This means that a multitude of quantum wave states are stored in a multitude of microtubules. Precisely how this is done remains a speculative  area but the point is that if one is aware and conscious there is a high degree of locality. When one dies, those wave states presumably evacuate and one's consciousness enters the domain of non-locality.

Hameroff's basic argument then, is that death doesn't mean the final termination of consciousness, so much as the end of its localization. If that is so, you cease to be a "person" or an individual identity and instead merge with other dispersed quantum wave forms (I have called them "B-waves" or de Broglie waves) to enter an "oceanic" state. 

The difference between the individual and oceanic states is often depicted using an illustration similar to that below:

INDIVIDUALITY:

___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___Ç___  

DIRAC ENERGY SEA (IMPLICATE ORDER) 

This gives a nice analogy between the "ocean" and individual waves, i.e. localized beings, entities. Here the individual manifestations occur within the "explicate order" - in the language used by physicist David Bohm. This is contrasted to the oceanic or holographic view.

which he calls the "implicate order".  See e.g.

[PDF]

Wholeness and the Implicate Order

I have to reiterate again that Hameroff's conception isn't really any kind of recognizable "afterlife". Indeed, it is impossible to even remotely describe a putative nonlocal state (of being)  as experiencing an afterlife, if it perceives at all. 

It also leaves a decided negative slant on the question of preserving any sense of self. How can one if the self is no longer separable but one with an oceanic "sea"? It appears at first blush, however, to be: 1) consistent with Christina Knight's holarchic system approach (since B-waves are not apart from her holarchic system) and 2) only one step removed from the atheist's state of total obliteration and nothingness.

Indeed, for all intents, Hameroff's afterlife and the atheist's nothingness post -death may essentially be indistinguishable.   In the meantime, I understand (via an email from the Mensa Bulletin editor) there will be a response to Christina Knight's systems conception excluding an afterlife. When it arrives, I will examine it as well.