No Afterlife for the Brain Damaged

Some say that part of us survives after death: our consciousness

Some say that our consciousness is a function of our physical brain, and when the brain dies, there is no more of us.

Sadly, it is clear that whatever the case, people with brain damage have clearly lost their consciousness (or part of it) and therefore have lost their afterlife.

If someone suffers from amnesia or dementia or altzeimers, what part of their consciousness will survive eternally? Will the spirit of a deceased brain-damaged person be eternally walking around heaven lost, not remembering any one's names, having psychotic episodes or whatever else their brain damage brings? Does a person who loses their memory in this life go into the next world with or without his lost memories?

What of someone who gets a head injury resulting in a major personality change, which is possible with front lobe damage? There was a famous case in the late 1800s of a railroad worker who had an accident while blasting rocks. A metal rod shot through his cheek and out his head. He lived, but with a different personality. His memory was intact, as was his functioning (he even returned to work!), but he was now a meaner, angrier person, quick to temper...a result of this change, he got fired from his railway j0b. Perhaps you too would be pretty angry if you lost part of your brain, had a permanent hole in your head, and had to join the circus for a living (that's what he did in fact, and he made a decent living rolling marbles through his head for the public!). But this injured railway worker wasn't merely in a bummed out mood after a head injury, he was described by his friends as a totally new (and less nice) person, 24/7. What this proves is that who we are is directly connected to the physical health of our brain.

So, if you're brain dead, then you are essentially soul-dead too.

If your memories and mental functioning don't survive intact in this life, then why should you expect it to survive after you die? This is a question that is quite relevant to anyone suffering from amnesia, retardation, dementia, and various psychotic illnesses due to a chemical imbalance in the physical brain.

While all of my theorizing doesn't rule out the possibility that SOME of us survive past our physical form, it does question the idea of an eternal consciousness which exists independently and separately from us.

***Rebuttal: Who we are is not simply our personality or our consciousness, but an essence much deeper. After all, in reincarnation there are no memories of past lives, yet something of the original soul is inside the new incarnation. In other words, there is a spark, a divine essence which underlies our very being and that originates in the cosmic consciousness and returns there when we die.

***Rebuttal to the rebuttal: That's a lot of abstract thought which cannot be proven, even if it did make sense.

Rest assured, I do not doubt that some of us have eternal souls and that some of us have a higher being watching over us (a concept known as God being in our lives). However, this involves only SOME of us. I, for one, personally know my previous incarnations. And I know from a series of amazing incidents in my life and from the impact I have made in this world that my existence is governed by an unseen hand. But not everyone has a right to claim this specialness.

This however is a topic covered at length in other blog entries of mine and it will be covered again many more times in the future.