Is immortality possible?

Let’s approach the issue from the point of view of physics. Let’s take the elementary particle photon. It is known to science at the moment can be in two states. Particle and Wave.

When a photon transmits electromagnetic interaction, it is a wave. When a photon, suddenly, is trapped inside an atom of some substance, then we can say that it has become a particle. Although, from the point of view of physics, he simply transferred his energy of motion and simply disappeared, because the photon’s mass does not exist.

Photosynthesis in chlorophylls in plants is based on this principle. Roughly speaking, plants eat light. In poetic terms, the death of a photon provides life for a plant.

In principle, if you look at the origin of all life on planet Earth, then the main factor that allowed this to happen is sunlight. Those. those same photons that transmit the energy of the Sun.

And so, the long food chain begins. Simplified — herbivores eat plants, people eat herbivores. Thus, we somehow consume these same photons in order to live.

Now we drive from the other side. That there is information, such as letters or numbers, or maybe even abstract memories in our head. In whatever form the information is stored, in fact, it also has no mass, it does not even have energy. It has power only at the moment when it is reproduced in any way.

For example, when we read a book, we reproduce the information message in our head in the form of images. From abstract symbols written on paper or in a computer, information passes into our consciousness and comes to life there.

Thus, some analogy can be drawn between how photosynthesis occurs and how information is consumed.

Now let’s imagine that the photon has a mind. And the photon wondered what death is. And is there something after death? We, as external observers, can quite clearly describe to a photon what happens to it. It transforms into what we call life.

All our thoughts, actions, forests, animals, fish in the ocean, birds in the sky are the new life of a photon after death. Of course, it will be difficult for a small photon to understand all the diversity that is happening around us. But we see it quite concretely every day.

Next in line we have a small trilobite in the Cambrian Sea, he also asks: “What will happen to me when I die?” We can answer him that perhaps in 500 million years, his fossil will be found and exhibited in the museum of geology.

Schoolchildren will walk by and look at a nondescript pebble. At this moment, a certain image of a large ancient cockroach will appear in the minds of the children, and the teacher will tell them a few facts. That’s all that’s left of this trilobite. Although no, not all. It is possible that from this ancient fossil there were several other species of animals that have survived to this day.

Nevertheless, from that particular individual who asked the question, this very small informational surge remained. And this very surge will occur again and again, while visitors to the museum will see it.

One day, some artist will also see the fossil and want to paint a picture of the ancient Cambrian sea. He gets to work and reproduces the possible exposure. A trilobite crawls along the bottom, and above it are jellyfish, above the water you can see ancient volcanoes and a gloomy sky.

All this, one way or another, will be reproduced again and again in the minds of those who see the artist’s painting. Each of the onlookers will “resurrect” information about this trilobite.

See how you yourself perceive your every day. We woke up, washed, drank coffee, walked, worked. From all this, certain images arise in our minds, and we remember this. Then we can write a memoir in old age, reviving moments from our life in the form of text. This text can be read by other people and in their minds you will drink coffee, walk, work, in principle, just as if the reader himself did it.

Now the question is, when we read our own memoirs and remember what happened to us, are our memories more vivid than if someone else read our memoirs and reproduced it in their minds in the same way?

I think that there won’t be so many differences. Unless we can remember a little more details and our feelings. But in the end it will be all the same non-material information that is transmitted in the form of text, memories or a computer.

Even if we take our every second impressions from the world around us, they are only indirect information messages from our senses. In fact, we only direct the ship of our body in the right direction and read the information.

Imagine that a new way of storing and transmitting information will be invented, one that will embrace all our senses, and so that we will not be able to distinguish ours from artificial ones. That in this case we will consider life when we have the same flow of information from different sources.

Then the possibility of transmigration of the human soul from one body to another will probably become available, which is colorfully described by some science fiction writers.

Thus, all that we can rely on when analyzing our lives is the information that we leave behind.

In the Middle Ages, under the influence of the Christian religion, the model of hell and heaven was developed. It takes place. Dante Alighieri very skillfully in the “Divine Comedy” placed various figures of that time in certain circles of hell. They exist in such information messages to this day.

And you reproduce these patterns over and over again as we read the lines of a great work. Imagine how they are fried on fires or frozen in ice. Isn’t it eternal torment? After all, this will happen every time someone reads the lines of the “Divine Comedy”, just as we imagine a person drinking coffee.

To those who have mastered my opus, I can tell you about the conclusion I made. Everything that a person does remains in this world in the form of information messages. Whether it’s a million clicks in a computer shooter or a great piece like War and Peace. The question is what kind of echo the information we leave behind will create after our death. How will we “resurrect” in the minds of people who will receive our weightless information messages.