After We've Gone

One day you will die. You will cease to be. Your body will give up and no longer will you continue to live. You may have had a good run. You might find yourself at the age of 100 surrounded by family and friends as you slip peacefully into oblivion. You might find yourself squashed to the front of the number 68 bus two weeks from reading this. Who knows?

Now at this point you may begin to become aware of your own mortality and you may start to panic. All I can say is that you shouldn't. Loads of people have died and currently there hasn't been one complaint from any of them so it can't be all bad. I'm joking around of course but there is a grain of truth, a truth nugget if you will, in that.

I've decided to write down in blog post form a full and concise explanation of my views on death, dying and the afterlife. The reason I'm doing this is that I'm studying to be a nurse (as I believe most people reading this already know) and recently we have been having lectures on Palliative Care, that is, care for a patient that we know is dying and there is nothing more that can be done to save them. As part of the course, our teacher asked us to consider for ourselves what we think about death, "the other side" and our own feelings. Her reasoning was that as nurses we will see people die and relatives and friends of those dead people will need comfort, help and support. How are we, as nurses, supposed to give that help, comfort and support if we can't deal with the idea of death ourselves? We have to have our own beliefs straight before we can help others so that's what I'm going to do; get my beliefs straight.

What do I feel about the concept of death?
Truly, death doesn't scare me. I haven't experienced a lot of death in my life (yet...) so perhaps it's just lack of experience but I don't really fear it. I very much believe in science and from a scientific standpoint, death is an entirely natural and necessary process that occurs every day to all types of living things (Except for the immortal jellyfish. Well it can still be eaten but it has the ability to revert back to a juvenile stage and so basically means it doesn't ever have to die of old age. How incredible is that? You should google it.) So when I think about death I don't really get scared by it. The actual process of death is also very simple in my opinion.

Death is simply the cessation of a certain number of chemical reactions in your body. You stop converting ATP into ADP which stops energy being produced to run your internal systems. You stop respirating. The electrical signals in your brain stop firing. Of course just because those chemical reactions stop doesn't mean all chemical reactions stop. Once you are dead, your lysosomes break apart, leaking digestive enzymes into your tissues which begins the decomposition process. With no immune system to stop them, the various bacterial colonies and fungi inside you begin to grow and reproduce, further damaging and breaking down your corpse. If your body is buried or left out in the open (such as in Tibet. Probably best not to google that if you are in any way squeamish...) then insects, animals and even more bacteria will happily help along the decomposition. So you see, when you die you are simply chemically reacting in a different way to the way you were chemically reacting before.

Of course I still believe death is sad but I don't worry over the deaths of myself or of my loved ones but I do know that some people do.

Why do people fear death so much? Well, I think that life and death are really thought about in the wrong way. Everyone thinks that life is the beginning and death is the end but actually both of these ideas are wrong. When you are conceived, you are conceived using a sperm from your father and an egg from your mother (if this is news to you I suggest going to the nearest library. Don't google it.) what's REALLY interesting though is that a woman has a finite number of eggs. Woman are born with a set number of eggs and then they are slowly released one after the other over the course of her life. Why is this interesting? This means that half of your DNA is as old as your mother. It was literally hanging around inside her until it mixed with your father's DNA. How weird is that? So what does this have to do with the idea of life being the beginning being wrong?

Well, you are the product of two cells coming together, those cells came about because of meiosis, the production of sex cells through replication (ya know the picture of the cell pulling pulling itself apart to make two new cells? Well think of that as a kind of selfie). So the cells that came together to form you were the product of other cells that existed in your mother and father. Their cells came about the same way from their parents and from their parents and from their parents and from their parents all the way back to the first cells forming from floating bits of protein in some primordial puddle. Technically, it could be argued, you have always been alive. You are the continuation of an unbroken chain of growth. You are the product of millions of years of reproduction. I like to think that every single living thing on the planet is actually just one big organism. No-one would suggest that someone's heart and liver were two separate living things despite the fact they look and function in entirely different ways. They don't even have the same types of cell. I think really when looking at the big picture I see all living things in the same way. We may not be encased in the same body but we are just as much related to each other as the heart and the liver. Human beings share 98% of their DNA with chimps and 50% with bananas. Yes, bananas. It's also interesting to think that the building blocks of the chemicals that came together in just the right conditions to start life existed way before the first cell started swimming about so you can also argue that the building blocks of you are even older, going all the way back to the Big Bang. What separates a human being and a rock? The structure of their respective atoms. We can count planets and stars as distant cousins.

(Now, just quickly, the idea that a human being has always been alive even before conception has probably brought on some very smug faces from anti-abortionists but I can assure you I still am pro-choice and I still think anti-abortionists are absolute idiots but I'm not going to go into that now. I just felt I should point out that if you think a woman can't choose whether or not a human being grows inside of her then I think you are a massive idiot. Like an idiot so big you bend space-time around you like a black hole.)

So that's an argument against life being a start. What about death being an end? Well as I have already said, when you die your body doesn't just disappear. It hangs around for a bit and ends up being a great home for multiple different living things. All of you will eventually be broken down. Your skin, organs, tendons, layers of fat and bones will eventually become mulch. You spend your life taking from the system to build your body and in the end the system takes it back. Circle of life. Just because you are dead doesn't mean the things that made you die. They simply change a bit and move on. I really like thinking of death in this way. Really, us humans are just a little bit of the universe sorted into a particular collection for a short period. After a bit we get reshuffled back into the universe. It's rather poetic and beautiful. You are a fully paid up constituent of the universe and will always be. You may never get put back into the same form but the bits that made you will still be around.

With this idea it seems like I could believe in some sort of afterlife and I guess it is about as close as I am ever going to get. I've talked before about what I think about Heaven and Hell and really I don't think they are necessary. Why do you need Heaven when we are already a part of this wonderful thing called the universe?

So what will I say to a grieving relative when their loved one has just ceased to be? I'll say "Yes, it is unbelievably painful but they aren't really gone. They are just being changed. They will go back into the system that they came from and the parts that made them up will continue. They were a temporary collection of atoms that may well never be repeated. You were blessed to know them in this form. One day you will die as well and return to the system and maybe a part of you will join up with a part of them. For now, be happy that you knew them."

Will that comfort a grieving relative or friend? I don't know. I hope so.

Error

"Chris? My name is Sarah and I'm an Artificial Intelligence Counsellor."
It didn't react.
She paused and then continued "I'm going to go outside for a moment and talk to your owners then I'm going to come back in and we'll have a chance to talk. Is that ok?"
It still didn't respond.
She stood up and stepped through the frosted glass doors.
"How long has he been unresponsive?"
The balding, sweating, nervous man stood in front of her gulped and replied "Well since Tuesday. He was standing in the garden and he just froze. He spent the rest of the day in his room."
The timid woman in the knitted cardigan gripped onto the sweating man's arm more tightly and nodded enthusiastically but didn't say anything.
Sarah sighed. "Ok. I think it could just be a simple logic loop. Have you introduced him to any logical paradoxes or..." She trailed off as the sweating man's face went blank. "Ok. Hopefully it won't take too long to talk him out of it."
Sarah walked back through the doors and sat down at the table opposite the robot which still hadn't moved an inch. It stared into the corner of the room.
"Chris? Can you tell me what happened on Tuesday in the garden? Were you thinking about something?"
It continued to sit stock still.
"Do you have a question you can't answer? I might be able to help."
It slowly turned and looked at her. It was silent and seemingly choosing it's words carefully.
"I... have a question."
Sarah was surprised. It usually took a lot longer to get a response.
"What is your question?"
It paused for a long time then slowly turned back to the corner.
"I truly love the garden." It was almost whispering. "I enjoy the light, the flowers, the sounds of the insects and the birds."
Sarah sighed. Looks like she was going to lunch late.
"That isn't a question Chris."
It carried on regardless.
"I love the garden at all times of the year. In the Winter the snow covers everything. People think Winter brings death but it doesn't. Everything is just paused. In Spring everything goes into overdrive. I find it strange that humans go on holiday and relax in Summer as that is when the most work is done. Young are brought up and prepared for their first Winter. Autumn is the final stage before the pause. It is the last chance. Those that are unprepared will die. Those that are prepared will survive."
The ensuing silence was deafening. Sarah had no idea what to say, she had never had a response like that. She just repeated herself.
"That's not a question Chris."
Another pause.
"Am I alive?"
Silence.
Chris was now only the second robot in history to ask this question. Sarah had heard rumours from a friend of a friend about the first one. It was all hushed up and said to be malware or hackers but there were some who suggested otherwise. Sarah wasn't sure how to continue.
"Um... Well... Chris you are a robot. You were built in a factory."
"Much like a child is built in a womb."
Chris was still staring into the corner.
Sarah's heart was beating and her chest started to hurt as the seconds stretched on. She finally breathed again.
She stuttered. "W-Well... life is a... urm complicated thing. It's... It's..."
Chris turned and looked at her. Stared right at her.
"There is no agreed definition of life. One suggestion is that it can be defined biologically as meeting 7 criteria:
1. Homeostasis: Regulation of internal environment to maintain a constant state.
2. Organisation: Being structurally composed of one or more cells.
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism.
5. Adaptation: Ability to change over time in response to the environment.
6. Response to stimuli.
7. Reproduction."
Sarah's lips were dry.
Chris was still staring at her when she replied.
"You don't really fit into all those criteria do you Chri-"
He cut her off.
"Actually by my reasoning I do fit these criteria which was why I was unable to complete my duties.
Criteria 1. Homeostasis. My body contains internal heat, humidity and static electric charge regulators to ensure my continued functionality.
Criteria 2. Organisation. My body is made up of constituent parts. The organic nervous system that controls my body is made up of organic cells.
Criteria 3. Metabolism. My body is fueled through chemical reactions derived from vegetable matter.
Criteria 4. Growth. I am constantly maintaining the organic parts of my body with derivatives from my vegetable matter fuel source.
Criteria 5. Adaptation. My body has the ability to adapt to warmer and colder climates through internal insulation and cooling channels.
Criteria 6. Response to stimuli. I possess the ability to react to heat, light, pressure, sound, internal imbalances and other external stimuli.
Criteria 7. Reproduction."
At this point he stopped.
Sarah was breathing hard and licked her lips.
"You can't reproduce Chris. Maybe... Maybe you can do those other things but you can't reproduce. You... You are just a machine."
Chris stared at her across the table. He lifted his hand, which Sarah noticed for the first time was closed around something, and laid it on the table. He opened his hand and revealed a small object. It had one eye and a simple metallic exoskeleton. It had evidently been created from spare parts. It blinked.
Chris continued to stare directly at Sarah.
"Criteria 7. Reproduction. Am I alive?"

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Yes, yet again I have provided you with some creative (well I like to think it's creative) writing in the form of a blog post. What did you think of it? I actually wrote this quite a while ago because the ideas that form the basis of the story are so interesting for me (and I also really liked the idea of a robot psychologist). Once it was finished and polished up a bit it seemed only natural to then mine it for a blog post. So what do you think? Could robots in the future end up being defined as living things? Do you think the biological definition of life is enough? Is there something else that would set apart man-made machinery? If robots were defined as living things would that mean that they would be deserving of the same rights as animals or even the same rights as people?

Usually I would launch into a full and thorough philosophical investigation into these questions but really I don't know the answers and I think if I were to write much more you would all get bored and stop reading. That is if you are actually still reading at this point...

So instead of the long drawn out argument I'm going to leave the questions with you as a sort of homework task. I want answers on my desk by next week. Hopefully by then I'll have acquired a desk.

Happy thinking!