A Note on Immortality
A friend of mine recently shared with me her doubts and queries on the subject of mortality and as this is the very best reason to write something I thought I might collect some of my own thoughts on the question to see if I could help. I will go back to the beginning and that is antiquity. In classical antiquity by and large (philosophers excepted) our lives and our deeds were preserved in the collective memory of other humans, as embodied in the family and the city. The Ancients, then, tended to get along with only a vague belief in personal survival after death as, indeed, did the ancient Hebrews. The memory of one’s deeds, whether famous or infamous, would live on in in these collectives. This lent gravity to what a person did in their lives as well as strengthened his or her concern for the collective future. After all, the death of one’s own family or the destruction of one’s city would be personal destruction as well. For instance, with the death of one’s descenda