OT - Scientific proof that there is no afterlife!

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Well, I think it's pretty obvious that the claim for the soul is for a 'substance' of some sort. Information cannot be 'immortal' after all. When the media it resides in is destroyed it goes poof.

Not as obvious as you might think. The idea of the soul being immortal is a relatively late conception. Among most ancient cultures, most notably the Greeks/Romans with Hades, and the Hebrews (grandaddy of christianity, a.k.a. the basis of modern western culture) with their Sheol, the afterlife was a place where souls gradually faded away until they forgot themselves and discorporated. The only thing that would maintain the identity of a dead soul was the devotion of the still living family. This is also the basis of most forms of ancestor worship.

This would imply that souls are stored within (or at least sustained by) the medium of human social memory.