Born to Die, part six

The deductive approach to understanding my impending death has yielded little more than the harsh conclusion it will be the end, this being primarily based upon the fact that there is no objective, empirical data to indicate anything more. The process of inductive reasoning, however, might shed a ray of hope, although this should not be—in my opinion—confused with conjecture or speculation. The First Law of Thermodynamics (it would seem to me useful at this point for the reader to refresh her or his understanding of the distinction between law and theory in scientific terms) raises a possible metaphysical argument for death not being the mere extinction of life. A reasonable argument can be made—and is supported by a growing body of empirical evidence—that what we humans label “life” is a form of energy. And if the First Law of Thermodynamics is that energy can be neither created nor destroyed but only changes state (form) then it follows that the law can be applied to life as energy. The behavioral sciences (oh that they really were) long ago concluded that the human perception of “life after death” is virtually universal, and now we have a point of agreement with the physical sciences. This falls far short of pearly gates, avenues paved with gold, or twenty-something virgins, but at the same time it provides pause to contemplate that I am in the process of changing the manifestation of that which cannot be destroyed.