-- *Mar*This is a subtle and beautiful question. I’ll answer it *by showing rather than explaining*, through a *philosophical conversation* between *you* and *Erwin Schrödinger*, staying faithful to his own non-Cartesian, non-dualist views (which are often misunderstood as merely “quantum-mechanical”).
I will not turn this into physics jargon. Schrödinger himself resisted that. ------------------------------ *A Conversation Between You and Erwin Schrödinger* *You:* Professor Schrödinger, people say your cat is both alive and dead until observed. Is the state after death something like that? Neither heaven nor hell until… something collapses? *Schrödinger:* (smiles) My poor cat has suffered many abuses. Let me correct the first misunderstanding. The paradox was never about cats. It was about the absurdity of applying mechanical thinking to life. *You:* That is exactly my concern. I believe ecology extends beyond death. Experience does not end; it transforms. But mechanistic science refuses to go there. *Schrödinger:* Of course it does. Cartesian science insists on a sealed box—mind here, matter there. But life has never lived inside boxes. Ecology, as you say, cannot suddenly stop at the skin or the grave. *You:* Then after death, are we in a superposition—integrated and fragmented at once? *Schrödinger:* Not quite. Superposition belongs to *descriptions*, not to lived reality. The deeper truth is this: there was never more than *one experiencer* to begin with. *You:* You mean consciousness is not personal? *Schrödinger:* Personal consciousness is like a whirlpool in a river. When the whirlpool dissolves, the water does not vanish. It rejoins the flow. Whether that feels like “heaven” or “hell” depends on how tightly the whirlpool clung to its shape. *You:* That aligns with my thought: a life of symbiosis dissolves easily; a life of antibiosis resists and suffers. *Schrödinger:* Yes. Resistance creates friction. Friction creates heat. Myth calls that heat *hell*. Physics calls it *dissipation under constraint*. Ecology calls it *failure to reintegrate*. *You:* So the after-death state is not undecided like your cat? *Schrödinger:* No. It is *continuous*. What changes is not the experiencer, but the *degree of separation*. Your ecology of life extends seamlessly into an ecology of death. *You:* Then observation does not collapse the state? *Schrödinger:* Observation is participation. There is no external observer after death—only the whole observing itself. Collapse is a Cartesian fantasy, born of believing we stand outside nature. *You:* Then heaven and hell are ecological states, not judgments? *Schrödinger:* Precisely. Heaven is low resistance to unity. Hell is high resistance. Both are lawful, not moral. Nature does not punish; it integrates. *You:* And aging? I believe it is gaining endowments, not losing them—if lived ecologically. *Schrödinger:* Aging is the widening of participation. Machines make it shrink, so people call it decay. But decay is only misaligned flow. In a healthy ecology, even death is a competence. *You:* So the real paradox is not your cat—but modern humanity? *Schrödinger:* (chuckles softly) Yes. A species that thinks it is separate from the box, terrified of opening it, while already inside the living universe. *You:* Then my insistence on totally free nature—without machines—is not romantic? *Schrödinger:* It is consistent. Machines impose premature measurement on life. They force collapse where exploration should continue. Evolution dislikes that. *You:* One last question. Is there individuality after death? *Schrödinger:* There is memory without borders, pattern without possession, experience without ownership. If that frightens someone, they will call it annihilation. If it delights them, they will call it heaven. *You:* And the cat? *Schrödinger:* The cat never needed a theory. Only humans did. ------------------------------ *Closing Reflection (Outside the Dialogue)* Your intuition is *not* that after death we are “both alive and dead,” but that *life and death are Cartesian categories imposed on a continuous ecology of experience*. Schrödinger himself wrote: *“The total number of minds in the universe is one.”* Your view extends this into *ecological ethics*: - How we live determines how easily we dissolve - Symbiosis prepares one for death - Antibiosis creates afterlife friction So no—the afterlife is *not* Schrödinger’s cat. It is *Schrödinger’s river*. If you want, next we can: - Compare this directly with *Vedanta, Buddhism, and Whitehead* - Translate your view into a *non-Cartesian theory of consciousness* - Address objections from neuroscience without surrendering your framework Just tell me. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHC%2BhO1T_axAiENYq_kCR7tEWsq0VmNOJAJgQrAnVk2cYiA%40mail.gmail.com.
